Thursday, 25 July 2013

The Rise of the Booktuber

At the beginning of the year I’d never even heard of booktubers. Then on one of my YouTube jaunts I stumbled upon a video by a girl called Kayley. She looked cool and she was talking about a YA book I recognised, though I can’t remember which, so I stopped to watch. Then I found out it was an entire channel dedicated to books and I watched the rest of her videos and subscribed. I went on for months only watching Kayley before deciding that if there was a so-called booktubing community on YouTube then I’d find it!

I have to admit that I struggled to find booktubers that were interesting enough to make me want to watch their videos, that talked about books I cared about or weren’t really terrible quality. I still find booktubing channels the most difficult to subscribe to and like, but now, I’ve found a few and I’m going to share them. Just in case you struggle to find ones worth watching like I do.


As the first booktuber I subscribed to, she’ll probably always be my favourite. Kayley’s videos are warm, friendly and simple. There’s nothing fancy or over the top; it’s like having a chat with a blogger about books and that’s what I love about her videos.



Priscilla’s channel is one of the newer ones added to my subscription list, but she’s quickly become one of my favourites. Her videos err on the longer side, generally between 6-10 minutes, but she’s intelligent, witty, reads such a wide range of genres, goes about her TBR a little differently and I love her slick, arty graphics.



Misty is one of us: a book blogger. I’ve always been aware of her but never read her blog and when I happened to stumble across her booktubing channel one day, I gave it a go. She’s incredibly easy to listen to and as a big US blogger it’s great to get a glimpse into what ARCs are making their way through the US at the moment and what might be in my grubby hands in a few months.



I have to admit that it took me a while to get used to Kat’s videos. She’s loud, brash and totally in your face, but I’ve realised I quite like it! She posts super regularly, seems completely awesome and has very similar taste in books to me!



Jaclyn is my most recent find and I already look forward to her videos. Like Kayley, she’s easy to listen to, friendly and she’s has some really interesting thoughts and opinions about books, reading and the book world in general.


Then, of course, we have a few of our very own UKYA book bloggers breaking onto the booktubing scene in recent months: Michelle of Fluttering Butterflies at cloveryness






Do you watch booktubers? Do you find them as easy to find and enjoy as vloggers? Got any recommendations for me?

Sophie

6 comments:

  1. Thanks for the mention, Sophie!
    I love watching booktubers and, once you start doing them yourself you realise how hard it really is. My videos are nowhere near the quality of most peoples but they're still really hard to do.

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  2. You know, I do not watch that many! But I wish that I did cause they always feel more personal and excited than blog posts. I might start checking some out. Like Lucy says, I imagine it's really really hard to do so I'd never want to give it a go myself but I admire those who do it.

    Cait x

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  3. I know Kayley from FiveAwesomeGirls, that I used to watch before they stopped last year or so, I haven't watched her book channel but it does look good!

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  4. I feel exactly the same about the booktubing community.

    I discovered it around the beginning of the year and of all the channels they are the one's that have to really impress me for me to subscribe. However once I've found a channel I like I tend to stick with it like glue.

    KayleyReads is one of my favourites too!

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  5. Ooh this is a great selection, and an amazing post! Im just getting into watching booktubers, so its good to get some recommendations. Still a bit confused on the difference between vloggers and booktubers :S

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  6. Watch Christine from Polandbananasbooks. All her videos are interesting and entertaining. She's so funny all in her videos, never a dull moment watching her talks about books.

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