BookTube and You

By Annette Cole Mastron, Communications Director for Southern Writers Magazine

Readers are always looking for new books to read. An interesting and valuable social media venue for authors is BookTube. Bookriot gives a good basis for creating a BookTube video.

Yes, you guessed it. It is an arm of YouTube. Some readers are becoming vloggers (video bloggers). It's a bold new world for authors. BookTube is a community of readers, who love reading and sharing their views. They have a variety of reading tastes in books.  It provides a different approach towards all genres of literature.

There is a danger on BookTube. While researching this blog post, I fell down "Alice's rabbit hole." The vloggers in BookTube are without a doubt entertaining and give authors a huge boost, unless your book falls into the "unhaul" section, but I'm getting ahead of myself. As an author, you need to consider approaching BookTube as the newest tool in your social media arsenal. 

START by making an account on BookTube. You need an account to find your favorite BookTubers in your genre. Most importantly, readers can find you.  Make sure to follow them on their website, blog, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat.  

Become video savvy. STOP. Don't panic. You can do this. Have fun with it. Everybody has to start sometime. Don't worry about the technical stuff. The video quality is all about what you say and do. The best thing to do is to be yourself. Garner attention by being unique and creating an enthusiastic skit. Have fun, and viewers will love it. Readers will love getting to know their NEW favorite author. Make sure you cross promo on your website, blog and social media links. Win Win for You!

Know the Lingo in BookTube

Bookshelf TOURS--showcase a BookTuber' bookshelves. You could show books that are currently on your bookshelves. Film in front of your personal libraries. Start with what books line your shelves starting with of course, your own books. 

Book TAGS--BookTubers are also fans of the TAG videos popular with other vloggers. Create questions pertaining to your books. Create a TAG that will resonate with a user who can associate with the topic.

Book Hauls/Unboxings--Always popular are Haul videos. BookTubers also have their own version and share their recent book purchases. This is where you hope your books appear. It is also where you can support other authors by giving them a shout out and then send them a link to your Haul. 

BookUnhauls--BookTubers talk about the books they are going to sell or donate. Sometimes it's a slight critique but done in a friendly fashion. 

TBR/To Be Read--BookTubers discussing the piles of books they’ve yet to crack open. In some cases they make a project out of it and even have a TBR jar that they pull a title from each month
Book-Buying Ban--BookTubers scale back by putting themselves on a book-buying ban. Sometimes they don’t have enough time to read causing their need to declare a book buying ban.

There are TV channels, on BookTube. One is "Epic Reads" by publisher HarperCollins. Washington Post critic Ron Charles, had the funny "Totally Hip Book Reviews." You can still view these to get a feel for a fun and successful attention-grabbing way to making a book video. 

Let me know if you're on BookTube. I will follow you. If you are not on BookTube don’t you think this will help you expand your web presents with a target audience, READERS?