RIANNA SEELIG
Staff Writer
Looking for a new book to read? Look no further than Booktube, an online community of avid readers dedicated to their love of books and writing, ready to spread awareness and info to like-minded individuals.
Booktube is a community of readers utilizing YouTube, Tumblr, Twitter and Instagram to create a dialogue about reading and encourage others to pick up books they may have enjoyed. In addition to this, Booktubers will promote new authors, writing conventions and author signings.
Anyone can be a Booktuber, but there are a couple qualifications that strengthen a person’s ability to reach authors and readers everywhere.
Firstly, many, if not all, Booktubers also have some sort of book blog, often on Tumblr. On this platform, Booktubers will give written reviews of books, will post pictures of book-related things and will further promote any events they may be attending.
In addition to this, Booktubers will likely have a Twitter to interact with viewers, an Instagram to post pictures of their books and a Goodreads account where viewers can track their reading habits.
Once a Booktuber gains a decent amount of popularity on various social media platforms, they can contact publishing companies to be sent Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs) of books. If they are popular enough, they may be directly contacted by publishing companies.
Michelle Cope, a senior voice and music industry major, applauds the tactics of the publishing company, seeing the promotional benefits of said interactions.
“It’s a great marketing strategy,” she said. “It’s the perfect way for authors and publishing companies to raise awareness of their product.”
This acts as a great way to promote new authors, books or new releases in a series that may already be causing excitement in the literary world. After reading the ARCs, Booktubers will often do a video review promoting both the author and the publishing company,
Nicole Brendel, a senior voice and arts administration major, sees Booktube as a great way to gain truthful and informed reviews of literature.
“They’re obviously knowledgeable about the texts their discussing, so you’re bound to get a good recommendation or, at the very least, a decent idea of other books you may be interested in reading,” she said.
So, what else do Booktubers do? First and foremost, they are there to promote reading and writing. The videos they post are often one of six things: reviews, hauls (videos showcasing newly-purchased books), TBR (To-Be-Read) lists, wrap-ups (a video showcasing the books they read that month), reading challenges or some form of promotion for an event.
Booktubers also, on occasion, will do bookshelf tours. These are videos where booktubers go through their book collection one-by-one and give a brief synopsis of each book. The videos always obtain an extremely high number of views.
Currently, five Booktubers appear to be dominating the internet: polandbananasBOOKS (269,405 YouTube subscribers and 31,002,678 video views), abookutopia (254,407 subscribers and 19,448,638 views), Katytastic (202,402 subscribers and 14,078,097 views), jessethereader (141,450 subscribers and 7,651,056 views) and PeruseProject (135,849 subscribers and 8,873,623 views).
All of the channels heavily feature young adult books, but each of these Booktubers is known for covering other genres as well (children’s, adult fantasy, manga, graphic novels and historical fiction, respectively).
Booktubers post videos weekly, and have various reading challenges every month. There’s a book and a Booktuber for everyone. Read on.