To book podcast and now on BookTube! | BookTube Newbie Tag

In this conversation, Booktrovert Reader shares her reading journey and how she discovered her love for books. She talks about taking a break from reading during college and the challenges of balancing required reading with reading for fun. She discusses how she rediscovered her passion for reading through a coworker's recommendation and the impact of the book Red Queen. Booktrovert Reader also shares her experiences with Goodreads, Bookstagram, and overcoming shyness to become part of the book community. She talks about her goals for her channel and the challenges of content creation, including dealing with perfectionism. Finally, she discusses her favorite genres and reading habits.

Check this out on video on YouTube: HERE

#booktube #booktubenewbietag #booktubenewbie #fantasybooks #booklover 

Takeaways

• Taking a break from reading during college is common, but it's possible to rediscover your love for books later on.
• Online book communities like Goodreads and Bookstagram can provide a sense of belonging and help connect with other readers.
• Overcoming shyness and building confidence can be achieved through participating in book communities and creating content.
• Dealing with perfectionism and avoiding burnout are challenges for content creators, but it's important to focus on sharing the love for books.
• Having a variety of reading formats, such as physical books, ebooks, and audiobooks, can enhance the reading experience.

Books I recommended:
https://amzn.to/3Sj9bwM

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Transcript

Booktrovert Reader (00:02.374)
Hi, BookTrovert reader here, Charity. I am coming with you to discuss something that I've noticed a lot of people do when they first start BookTube, and that's the BookTube newbie tag. I figured I'll try my hand at it with some questions from those questions, but I kind of like, well, there's a lot of other things I would like to talk about to, you know, get you to get you to know me a little bit better. So.

Booktrovert Reader (00:34.666)
So the basis of getting to know me is to get to know my reading journey. I have been a big reader since I was a young, youngling, a little hobbit. And I thought, you know, I kept reading and, you know, when I started getting older, I started asking for books for Christmas. And a lot of the times I did just read.

fantasy books as a kid. I would read contemporary romances, you know, like the Christian kind where it was very clean, of course. I think that's what my parents would allow me to have at the time. And, okay, scratch that. I would mainly read a lot of fantasies and some contemporary romances that were considered clean at the time. And some of my favorite

fantasies that I've read was from Tamora Pierce, Eragon from Christopher Paolini My favorite of all times was Ella Enchanted by Gary, Gary Carson Levine. I would say even as a kid I would never reread books, but Ella Enchanted I have read like five or six times. I love that book so much. It was probably the best fairy tale retelling that I've ever read when I was a kid, so.

I would do that all over again, read it over. And then I even like got into Wicked by Gregory Maguire. I actually thought that was pretty interesting read at the time. I'm not as interested in that one as it used to be, but that was one of the some things that I've read when I was first reading fantasy. I did...

I did take a break from reading when I got into college. I mean, I think a lot of people can relate to that. Once they get inundated by required reading, reading for fun is not as enticing as what it used to be. So I completely abandoned reading. When I went to college, I just gave up all my books. I just went to college, did my required reading and didn't pick up a single thing. I didn't even finish books that were considered required.

Booktrovert Reader (02:52.438)
reading for me. That's how bad it was for me. And so I did that. I got married right out of college and I went straight to work. So even then, I just didn't pick up reading because I was, you know, focusing on paying my bills and, you know, trying to find a decent wage for myself. And, you know, I couldn't even, you know, afford food at times.

But we were able to, my husband and I were able to make it through, but reading was just not a priority to me at the time. So when I did get, so when I did get moved to a different job, where it was just a little more, you know, it had business casual and a little more fancier concerning the, you know, the job I was doing. I had a coworker who

loved reading herself. She was a big historical fiction reader and she for some reason made it her mission to find me a book to read. I don't know why she did that for me more than anybody else in that office, but that's what she did. And she first picked me up a cozy mystery and if anybody knows me, I just don't do mysteries. I don't do thrillers. I don't do crime. I don't do horror. I don't do any of those, but

she tried doing that. I never picked it up because I'm like, I'm not interested in a mystery. And then she found me a book, Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard. And let me tell you how life-changing that book was to me. I am kind of curious if I reread it, if it would, you know, have the same impact on me when it did when I first read it. But it excited me and it ignited a passion for reading. Once again, I like benched that series and I just started

reading all over again all these fantasy books that I felt like I missed out on for four or five years that I didn't I mean if you know even when I look at it today I feel like I missed out on so much between 2017 and 2019 well no actually it was 2014 to 2018 that I was not reading and I feel like there was so much published during that time that I missed out on and

Booktrovert Reader (05:15.114)
You know, I'm, I feel behind, but I'm still enjoying it and discovering new authors in those books that are published around that time. And in 2019, I think that's when like, if you were considered yourself truly hooked in the book community, like the first step to that is actually going to Goodreads. And I did discover Goodreads in 2019. I really honestly don't know how I discovered it. I

I don't know, I was looking up book reviews, I think, and there was a book I wanted to know and that's how I stumbled upon Goodreads. I just signed up for an account and when I discovered you can list all the books that you have read, I started going nuts. If my TBR was like 15 books, it went to like 500 within the first few days of me just getting on that website and discovering a book.

new books to read. I didn't really like get into like the weeds of the book community until I befriended a another Goodreads friend on that platform. Her name is LiteraryHypeWoman and on her profile she was talking about a bookstagram and I was like what is this bookstagram? Now I

never had an Instagram before. I never cared for it, never felt the point of Instagram. I thought it was pointless. You know, I'm just like Goodreads and Facebook. That's all I need in life. And yeah, that's when she kind of introduced me into Bookstagram and I signed up for my account. And originally my account was called My Brighter Books. And you know, I started posting pictures and

I at the time was so scared to do that because I was very shy and very timid, reserved, and I was actually at times dealing with social anxiety. And I was very nervous to share my love for books because I felt like my love for books was a very solitary hobby. And I didn't think anybody out there really enjoyed reading as much as I did. And I know it's such, such a...

Booktrovert Reader (07:38.29)
Small thinking but I really you know if you my friends circle they didn't read when I went to my schools I was the only one reading I don't I didn't see people reading I know they were out there, but I just didn't see them reading so when I first posted on there I was like, you know, I don't know who's out there, but I'm gonna try it myself and I did and I never looked back from there

Through Bookstagram, I was able to gain so much confidence and self-esteem through just posting and just getting myself in front of people when I was so scared to do it. And I was, you know, I've gained so many good friends from Bookstagram that I just don't regret taking that leap of faith into creating an account and getting to know people. I was still scared in doing it, but I don't regret it.

And since then I have like, I tried starting a booktube channel when I started Instagram, Bookstagram, but I was, like I said, I was still dealing with like social anxiety. I was so scared that I remember I was shaking so bad trying to start my first video and I quit. I was like, no, I'm not going to do this. I'm too scared. So a year later, I think I heard one of my in-laws decided to start a podcast.

and he just he did a book review like a book discussion but he read off a script and I was like oh I can do that I can do that I mean that's something I can do so I started a podcast from there and I just strictly stuck it to fantasy because I didn't want to overwhelm myself with other genres and you know and once I got into podcasting that's when I noticed that I have made a lot of

breakthrough in concerning my confidence. There was like really a lot of breakthrough to step in front of a camera and show my face and talk to people and to have conversations and build relationships that I thought I could never do. And then I did the booktube thing or no, I did the book tok and then I decided to do booktube so I can like, you know, do personal videos about fantasy reads and my podcast interviews.

Booktrovert Reader (09:59.602)
So I have come such a long way from being so scared and timid and thinking that I was the only person reading in this world to being surrounded by a huge community of readers that not only, you know, read as much as I do, but read more than I do. And I find that so fascinating. I'm so ecstatic about people's passions for reading.

I'm grateful to be a part of this book community because I just don't feel as alone as I used to be. And I'm continuing to build relationships with people that are my greatest friends, and I am always on the lookout for new friends and new authors to talk to and new books to discover. Oh gosh, there's so many good books that it's just, it's overwhelming sometimes. I'm hoping I will find a system one day to read all the books and hopefully never feel like I'll ever catch up.

So...

Booktrovert Reader (10:59.202)
What fun things I want to do on this channel. I obviously I am attaching this channel to my podcast, which has, you know, author interviews that I have talked, you know, I'll be talking to about their books and also people in the book industry, like narrators or people who have passions or booktubers or, you know, other creators that want to talk about what they love just as much as I do.

Because I want that sense of like, you know, I want that sense of people not just not feeling alone anymore when it comes to their hobby, which is reading. And it can be really isolating. And I understand what it feels like to have finally have somebody or community that really shares what you love. And that's what I want to do with this channel and not only talk about fantasy books, I want to talk about like books you never heard of.

books that maybe have like faded away, but let's bring them back. I want to talk about even the hyped books, you know, books that maybe I don't like, books I really love, and I am excited to share that with more fantasy readers like me. And that you're not alone. You know, I'm here. Let's talk about it. And I'm happy to like share this joy with you readers.

Booktrovert Reader (12:21.242)
So what questions would you ask your favorite booktubers? Well, you know, like I said earlier, I was originally like my user handle on Instagram was My Brighter Books and then I eventually went to Booktrovert Reader because I am a very, very serious introvert. I love talking to people and

run out of energy really quickly when it comes to socializing, when it comes to being on recording or just for a podcast or my interviews with other authors and everything. I can get expended quickly. There has been a few times where I have started recording either for the podcast or anything and just stopped within five minutes because I was like, I don't have the energy for this. I don't have the drive. I don't have the motivation for it.

and I've noticed that has been my biggest, has been my biggest hindrance a little bit, is just the amount of energy that it takes to contribute to making content. And I wanna know how does BookTubers or even content creators keep up with that and really work around their energy if they have to kind of not, you know, have to be careful about how they spend it. So I would love to ask that.

Booktrovert Reader (13:50.758)
and also to avoid burnout because I know I have a few times that I would, you know, it's just sometimes can get easy to get burned out and creating content. So I want to know like, how do they batch their content? How do they create their content and how do they make sure they don't hit that burnout and keep doing what they love? Because this is what it's about is doing what you love. So that's a thought I would like to ask other booktubers.

What challenges would be the hardest with BookTube? I can be a perfectionist. I, I'm terrible at not feeling like anything is good enough. I have a bad habit of doing something, like recording something, really don't like one thing about it, and then do the whole thing over. There has been a few times where I've recorded some, uh,

where I recorded some material and then I totally scrapped it like three or four times because I just didn't like something about it. And then I burned myself out because I kept doing it over and over and over again because I just felt like nothing was enough. And then I noticed that when it comes down to the behind the scenes like editing and you know putting it on social media and things like that I find that I'm very like trying to make sure it's perfect before I upload. And I'm finding it's tiring to do that.

So that's my biggest challenge is for me, is just not to get so caught up with it being like A to Z, like perfect from the very beginning. One of my videos, I accidentally, you know, some reason my hair was a mess. It looked like a ratness on my very first video on my own. And I almost scrapped that project because I was like, no, my hair is crap.

But then I realized like, you know what? It's better to have something than not at all. The content is good. I just don't look what I would like to look. So that said, I put it up and I'm glad I did because it's just, you know, I can't get caught up with that perfectionism that is easy for it to run my life. So what kind of books I read? Of course it is the fantasy genre. It's the number one thing that I love so much. It is...

Booktrovert Reader (16:09.854)
You know, I always consistently enjoy it. I may, I think the only thing I kind of get burned out on when it comes to fantasy is the book size. If I'm constantly reading 500, 600, 700 page books back to back to back, or I read like the same books in a series, I can get burned out that way. But a lot of times if it comes to fantasy, I will not get burned out on that genre. And I would say the next genre is romance.

and it's sci-fi and dystopian, but typically you'll find me read like the fantasy with the subgenre. So fantasy sci-fi or fantasy dystopian, things like that. A lot of times I will branch out in a different genre but stay within the fantasy as the main point. So I typically read about three or four books at a time.

And the way I do that is one on audio, one on ebook, and one as a physical book. And sometimes I might balance a nonfiction, depending on what the subject's about and what I'm learning. I just, that's sort of how I like to typically do it because I have a method to my madness. The physical book is in my library. That's where I like to sit in my fluffy comfy chair and I like to hold the book present.

and I or I like to make sure that like if I really want to know the world get to know the world that's what I do. Uh the Kendall, which I love being able to take it wherever I go. It's you know, I was that kid growing up, you know, I would always carry a book with me and it didn't matter if it was 200 pages or 600 pages. I carried that book with me. I actually started wanting to carry a purse with me.

when I was in high school because I just wanted to carry my book with me and I would go through so many purses because of the weight of the book and sometimes I put more than one or two of them at a time. So when I heard about Kendall I was so nervous about it because I was like what if I don't use it? What if I don't need it and what if I never pick it up and I just asked for it for Christmas and you know I never use it but actually it has been the best.

Booktrovert Reader (18:28.438)
um gift that was ever uh given to me because I carry that thing around with me everywhere and doesn't destroy my purses anymore and that also too it also I like you know being able to read at the dinner table if I have like just want to eat and read at the same time or when I'm laying in bed I don't want to carry a heavy book or turning lights on or you know and

Booktrovert Reader (18:59.274)
you know, like to keep the lights off and read from my candle. And then once the lights start breaking through, I would read from a book. I have very strange habits, but that's what I like to do. So yeah, let me know in the comments below, what's your favorite fantasy book and what is a question that I answered that you would like to.

Booktrovert Reader (19:34.062)
So in the comments below, just let me know what your favorite fantasy book and I appreciate you joining this journey with me. I am looking forward to getting to read more fantasy books, getting to know more readers like you, and to continue this channel and make it very exciting content for you guys. So, well, thank you. Catch you later, readers. Bye.