How Jonah Evarts built a BookTok following and a writing career

In his own words, Jonah Evarts is "just some guy that talks about books on the internet." But with more than 158,000 followers on TikTok, the Kansas-based creator has built a devoted audience around his love of reading, especially high fantasy. Since 2023, Evarts has transformed that passion into a full-time career, landing a spot on the reality competition series Destination X and publishing his debut novel, Reaper's Bend. The return of BookCon after a six-year hiatus offered a rare chance for the online BookTok community to connect in person. We caught up with Evarts at BookCon 2026 to talk about turning a hobby into a career, choosing the independent publishing route, and what's next for his growing platform. Jonah Evarts: I started my BookTok account about three years ago, and I think I'd been posting for a couple of months before I really started even having anybody see my videos, which was crazy. And now, three years later, it's my job, which is crazy. I've been doing it full-time for a year and a half, which feels really weird. Sometimes I wake up, and I'm like, "What am I gonna do for work? Oh, I'm gonna read a book." It happened so organically for me. When I first started