Do you want to stand out on Booktube? What is Booktube? It’s this amazing community of book lovers on Youtube. People make videos about books and there’s thousands who watch such videos every day.
If you’re a budding booktuber, you will also find out how competitive it is. The growth is super slow for it’s not that cat or dog video which will get millions of views. It’s a kind of channel that only the intellectuals that love books would watch.
Then there’s this thing about women dominating the booktube space. I call all of these – excuses. You see, when I started my booktube channel and I wasn’t fully invested in it, I made all these excuses too – growth is naturally slow, my country doesn’t have big enough reading population, my country’s people don’t want to watch such videos, I am an Indian so my growth is slow and so on. These excuses kept me entertained for long until I decided to actually take it seriously.
I went around trying to find out what’s making that other channel gets thousands of views. How do you really stand out on Booktube? I researched and implemented and learned. Today, I am going to share a part of what I learned about how to stand out on Booktube.
Present Your Videos Well
No matter how hard you work, if you’re not being smart, you can’t stand out on booktube. You have to establish your unique personality while you’re on camera. One of the most successful Booktubers – Christine Riccio from PolandBananaBooks has this amazing style of speaking and presenting her videos. Don’t you find it obvious why she is the most successful on booktube?
I see a lot of people starting their channels and not even spending a day on improving their video quality. Dude! It’s showbiz. What looks good and feels good will sell. You maybe the best booktuber in terms of content and ideas but if you are not presenting it well, you’re as good as the worst.
What would I recommend? Spend at least an hour a day to see how you can improve your style of presenting, editing, filming and so on. Stop being a fool who wants success without paying for it and start spending some money on your equipment and knowledge building.
2. Consistency
I can bet that most of you who will read this article will post no more than five videos in a year. I have seen ‘booktubers’ claiming to be the best ones when they post five videos a year without even informing their viewers when they’re going to post them. Heights of stupidity!
First of all, if you really want to do it, do it consistently. Even five videos a month is way too less. Post more. Post often and consistently. Inform your viewers about your posting schedule and never lose your touch with them if you want to stand out on Booktube.
3. Variety Of Videos
Most booktubers just stop at regular TBRs, wrap ups, book hauls and book reviews. Yes, I know that you saw this awesome booktuber with more than 100,000 subscribers and he/she posted just that for years.
My dear, times were different then. There wasn’t any competition. People didn’t have high expectations. People didn’t crave for ‘more’. Now, they do.
So, make those regular TBRs, wrap ups and book hauls. I’ll tell you why they’re important in the next point but ensure to bring a fresh set of content on your channel too. Think about what you can show to a person who has watched these usual videos of his top favorite booktubers and now, needs something new. Make those kinds of videos.
It will require some serious thinking. I mean, I spend 3 whole days just to brainstorm a month’s worth of such ideas. How many hours you’re spending to think of ideas?
4. Follow The Trends
Never even think of skipping those TBRs, wrap ups and book hauls. Those are the kind of videos that are most popular and once you have a sizeable audience, you’ll realize how they work much better than any other video. Never skip them.
Another thing is book reviews. Many people don’t do it because they hardly get any views. The most successful booktubers don’t do them often. But, you should. Why? Book reviews can get you a lot of search engine audience. People look for reviews before buying anything and if you have reviewed that book people are looking for, you can have so many new people on your channel and possible subscribers. So, never skip the book reviews even if they seem less popular videos. They’re but they’re still important.
Apart from these, trends like book tags, events like booktubeathon, spookathon etc are really good ways to have more people to discover you. Let it happen.
5. Be A Part Of The Community
I see so many booktubers ballooned up with their self pride. They may not have lots of subscribers but they have lots of attitude for sure. God bless such fools but if you’re reading this, I want you to drop your attitude and be nice to people.
Be supportive to your fellow booktubers. Watch their videos, interact with them and befriend them. For God’s sake, don’t post a comment like “Hey! I have this channel. Sub for Sub?” or “Hey! Subscribe to my channel” or “Hey! blah blah blah (useful comment). Check my channel too.” If your comments are solid enough, people will do that anyway. If not, you will just turn them off.
6. Don’t Believe In These Myths
i) Women get more views on booktube: I pity at the world these days. It’s all about gender discrimination and racial discrimination. Who says men don’t get enough views on booktube? Just because you don’t see many of them around doesn’t mean they are just not preferred. Did you ever think, maybe, not many decided to work hard on it? Jesse The Reader worked hard on his channel and he’s alongside the successful ones like Christine Riccio and Sasha Alsberg. If you’re a guy hiding behind this stupid notion that men don’t get enough views on booktube, just man up and work hard.
ii) U.S. booktubers are more popular: Let me reveal the truth of life to you – U.S. based youtubers from any niche are more popular than youtubers from anywhere else in the world. But it’s your sick mentality that makes you focus on such stupid excuses. I mean, if PewDiePie had used this as an excuse, this Swedish guy wouldn’t have been the highest earning Youtuber with highest number of subscribers. So, stop making yourself happy with these excuses.
iii) Local Language: See the youtubers in India and you’ll see how most of them want to make videos in English even when their major audience lies in Hindi videos. Think about your country. Is your first language English? If not, why aren’t you making videos in your local language? Why? You’ll lose your global reach? Don’t you think we should worry about this when you actually have some reach?
I have been guilty of this third point as well. I started making videos in English and I kind of like it. But I have learned how Hindi videos can get me more audience and hence, I am making hindi videos as well. And soon, you’ll see almost all the booktubers in India following that, even the ones who act like they know better and are insanely jealous and insecure of me for I like to not flatter the biggies in the publishing industry which they find it threatning for their viewers will some day discover their true identity and desert them. What can I do about it?
Anyway, those are my six tips to help you stand out on Booktube. I hope these will help. Let’s not end this conversation here. Let’s continue it and help us grow one another. Comment below with your questions, suggestions and thoughts about this. NOW!
