What makes a good book? The setting? The characters? The artistry of a good sentence? The plot devices that further a narrative or deepen your understanding?
Well, if you have some answers to that question, then it might be time for you to start your own BookTube.
BookTubes are vibrant, reader-driven YouTube channels that are primarily focused on reviewing and discussing books from any genre. Essentially, they are like a self-driven book club where you get to decide what to read and create a platform to share your insights.
BookTubes are also vibrant communities, full of engagement, debate, and discussion. This social element can help you stave off feelings of isolation during the pandemic and can connect you to a wonderful community of readers who want to talk about the same books as you.
So, whether you want to debate the ethics of Dumbledore or are fascinated by Fight Club, you should consider starting a BookTube to host your musings—here’s how.
Creating a Channel
Creating a BookTube channel is much like creating any other kind of YouTube channel. You can either do this by creating an entirely new account for your BookTube channel, or you sign in to your regular YouTube account and select “add account”. This will allow you to create an entirely new channel that’s dedicated to your online book discussions.
That’s the easy part done with. Now you should be automatically redirected to a new landing page to create your channel’s “branding.” At this stage, you’ll choose everything from your channel’s name to the banner imagery that will be displayed when your audience visits your channel.
It’s easy to get bogged down at this stage, as there truly are infinite names and images for you to choose from—it makes you wonder how authors ever settle on titles for their novels. Ideally, you’ll choose something book-ish like Brittany the Bibliophile or fictionalfates (yes, those names are taken). But don’t worry if you can’t think of anything creative—just your name is enough to get started.
Finding a Niche
If you want to grow a following as a BookTuber, you should probably settle on a niche or style that separates you from other folks who are doing similar things. Luckily, most readers have their niche chosen for them, as they can focus on their favorite genre or author.
But what if you love fantasy, early modernism, and postcolonial literature? How are you supposed to find a niche when you like just about everything? Well, in this case, your niche can be found in style rather than content. You could, for example, choose to present your readings from a particular critical lens like feminism or deconstruction.
Alternatively, you can add other elements to your presentation like animations or well-edited text overlay to help illustrate your points. To become proficient with these kinds of edits, you’ll want to consider enrolling in an Adobe Premiere Pro course. Adobe Premiere Pro is the holy grail of video editing software and allows you to make a range of creative changes to your videos.
Whatever niche you land upon, don’t let a desire to be entirely original slow you down. Starting a BookTube is perfect even if you just want to share a collection of your thoughts about your favorite novels or current reads.
Building Community
BookTubes are a really interesting medium for reviewers and readers. At first glance, it seems as though BookTubing is a one-sided conversation where folks talk to the camera and share their ideas without any engagement from others. However, the best BookTubers know how to build community and actively listen to their audiences.
They do this in a range of ways, but by far the most effective method is to utilize other social media channels which allow you to interact with your listeners—like TikTok. Book reviewers on TikTok are called BookTokers, and they’re great at engaging with audiences and making books more accessible through an ethos of community building and inclusivity.
As a BookTuber, you can utilize the same methods that BookTokers use by engaging with comments and actively encouraging viewer participation by holding Q&A sessions on YouTube live, and by taking book requests from engaged audiences. You should also take care to ensure that all viewers have equal access to your content and should follow web accessibility guidelines like providing subtitles for your video content.
Over time, your community will help guide your decision-making and can help improve the quality of your offering. Remember, just because you can’t hear your audience you shouldn’t ignore them — their comments and insights will be invaluable in the early days of your BookTube channel’s growth.
Conclusion
Starting your own BookTube channel is a great way to share your ideas and find a community of similar book-y people that love thinking about what they’re reading. Starting a BookTube channel is fairly straightforward, but if you want to develop your following it’s worth investing in some further training to ensure that your ideas come across clearly and make a meaningful impression on your audience.
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