AN UNFILTERED BOOKTUBE Q&A.

Hey, what's up, hello my name is Emma and today, we are going to be doing an honest and unfiltered Q&A about BookTube. On Twitter, I had asked you guys for some unfiltered and honest questions about BookTube. And I don't think everyone really understood the type of questions that I was looking for, but today I'm gonna be answering some questions about my channel and the BookTube community as transparent and as honest as I can. Brittany asks "What is your least favorite thing about BookTube?" I've come to realize that a lot of my problems in BookTube don't actually come from inside the BookTube community.

It's not the BookTubers and it's not the people that are like actively watching BookTube because they have a passion for reading. It has a lot to do with the people that I consider to be on the outskirts of the community, the people that are very judgmental and are harsh and... Just really hate watch BookTubers cuz I guess they have nothing better to do. My least favourite ever thing about booktube is probably the ongoing misconception that BookTubers lie about their opinions on books to either make money on sponsorships or to preserve their relationships with publishers.

I personally have never been put in a situation where I had to review a book or product whether I was being paid or it was being sent to me in exchange for that review. That I did not genuinely like and I have talked to a ton of other BookTubers in casual conversation about this stuff because we're friends we talked about the community. I have honestly never felt like anyone who was talking about being always authentic in their reviews to be anything less than honest when we were discussing that. But people still think we do and it is really, really annoying.

"Has anything ever made you want to quit making videos?" Absolutely not, I've never considered quitting booktube. I've never even considered taking a break that was longer than a couple of days. "How do you get a sponsor and do you ever turn down sponsorship deals? I definitely turned down a large amount of, not just sponsorship but even just review requests. Like I.

Deny most of the emails I get. I want to make sure that if I'm working in collaboration with an author a company or a publisher that it's gonna be something I like so, I'm going to pick up things that I am more inclined to like whether that be a book from an author or of a genre or of another book that I've heard good reviews of in the community like I like to tailor the promotions I do to my content and what I think is going to make me the happiest as well as you guys. How do you get a sponsor? Um I talked about this a little bit in my How BookTubers Make Money video, which I will leave below. Because I feel like that is another video that's focused on being unfiltered and honest with the community.

I have only ever done sponsorships that have been offered to me I have never tried to ask a company. "Hey will you pay me to review this book?" I just, I personally could not do that, a lot of other people could and that's fine. I think pretty unanimously in the community, most of the sponsorship deals you get are being offered to you by a publisher or another company. "Does it happen that you force yourself to read, just you can make a certain video?" I've never picked up a book just because of the hype so I could make a video about it though if that's what you were asking.

But if you're gonna pick up a book just because it's popular and you want to be involved in the hype on BookTube to make a video about it for views, don't do it. It's not gonna be fun. "What is your least favorite video to film?" I would say skits, sketches and like the more creative type videos of BookTube definitely stressed me out more because I'm so comfortable just sitting in front of a camera and talking like that's why I really like discussion videos and reviews because I'm able to just let the word vomit come and I'm able to just spew out everything I want to say. There's so much more planning involved in those types of videos that I just often discourage myself for making them because I'm afraid of it not coming out the way I want it to be, but I'm trying very hard to push myself out of that.

"Have you ever been afraid to do a book review because you didn't agree with a popular opinion?" Yes! I won't go into too many details because I think it'll be pretty obvious what book I'm talking about if you'd been on my channel since 2017. Um, but there was a book that I absolutely loved for the way that it impacted me personally and before I was even able to post that review, there was a large uprising in the community about how a lot of people disagreed with it; and I ended up spending that night up until 2:00 a.M. Crying with anxiety attacks because I knew I was going to receive severe backlash for my opinions on this book, even though it was like something that was so special to me and something I felt very passionate about and, um, people people did give me a lot of backlash for it, but I don't regret that. You know it's something I knew I would have to overcome in the community at some point.

And I did and if anything, I care less now and I'm more confident and able to express my unpopular opinions if you will, because I know that it's so much more important for me to be genuine with my audience, as opposed to shy away from people who don't really watch my videos or don't like me as a person and I want to focus on, you know doing what I can to be the most authentic person for you guys that do support me and will love me even if I don't agree with your opinion. "Do you feel different now that you have such a big audience? Or does it feel the same as it did when you first started?" It's the same but it's also different like I still have the same passion and excitement for making videos about books and for participating in the online book community as I did when I first started. If anything that's really even grown. Um, but it's a little different because now I realize how many people are truly watching me and I see the influence of my words on the internet.

So it's caused me to be a little bit more cautious, um, and to be a little bit more aware of when I'm posting online. Not that I'm putting up like a facade or anything like that, but I do spend extensive amounts of time making sure that the videos I want to put out are actually the ideas I'm trying to convey as to not have people misconstrue them or misinterpret what I'm really trying to say. So I feel the same about BookTube, but I would say I'm a little bit more cautious with my behavior. "Do you feel the BookTube community is isolated from the rest of YouTube if so, how do you feel about that?" I do think BookTube is isolated because really the only people that know about BookTube are the people that are involved in the community.

Anyone involved on YouTube knows about the vlogging community, the beauty guru community, the gaming community, even if you don't watch those videos you know they exist. You really only know about BookTube if you watch BookTube videos or make them. And honestly I think this is such an asset. I mean the online book community is huge and the BookTube community is so much bigger than it used to be.

But compared to other YouTube communities it's very small and we're very close-knit. Like I think the interactions we have in the BookTube community, are so much closer compared to other people in other YouTube communities. And I think it's nice that like we have this safe space where we can share our opinions on books and where we can come together with like-minded individuals whereas other communities might have trolls that are constantly in the comments or people that are being like overly critical and like fighting and drama and just all that negative stuff definitely is not as present in the booktube community and I think that's because it really is a small group of people that are there for the same reasons. "Have you ever been forced to lie about a book just for promotion?" No.

I'll give you a quick rundown of two examples of BookTube promotion and how BookTubers actually interacts with publishers. If someone is offering me a free book in exchange for review so there's no payment involved, generally they email me asking me to review it I reply that I either want to or don't want to if I want to I send them to my mailing address. When I get the book I like know I got it. We talked a little bit about what date I am posting it and I send it to them after it's posted like that is the only interaction we've had, I've never even had anyone suggest that they wanted to know my thoughts beforehand if it wasn't being paid.

So in my experience, when someone's asking me just to review a book I don't talk to them all that much and they just get the final product. When it comes to payment it's the same kind of approach where they asked me to do it, if I'm interested I will sign an actual contract and within that contract, every single contract I've ever signed for a sponsored video it says "we will make reasonable edits to your video in the case of spoilers." So that means if the book isn't coming out and they don't want any spoilers like I can't say the ending of a book in a paid promotion video, but they clearly state that it has nothing to do with your opinions, we won't touch those, you're free to express any positive or negative opinion on the book you're promoting. That is in the contract that I signed and the publisher signs. It's a very mutual agreement that there is the chance that I will or will not like the book that I am promoting and that's fine.

You know they just really want me to feature it on my channel, and that's the most important thing. So no, publishers do not ask you to lie to promote a book, if anyone in the community does that it's of their own free will. But I genuinely don't think anyone in the community does that. Most of you wanted to know why is Booktube so white and heterosexual.

This is definitely going to be the longest response in the entire video because not only do I have a lot to say about just the community in general and the way it is represented, but as well as somebody did ask me questions specifically about panels at conventions, as to why they are so white, if we are aware of it and are we planning on fixing it? I'm pretty sure that every single convention runs differently, so for example I think Vidcon you have to be like invited as a guest. And I do know that Vidcon has had more people of color on their BookTube panels as opposed to something like BookCon. But I'm pretty sure that's in the hands of the Vidcon Official so if you would like to see more people of color or people of more diverse sexualities and backgrounds on those panels, email them, they have a response sheet fill it out, tell them what you want. I have no idea how YallWest and YallFest works with the way that they coordinate panels.

I know that Booksplosion for example they have panels everywhere, the three of them are white and I think it would be great if we had like an additional BookTube panel so the people that do want to see Booksplosion, I am one of them, could go to that panel but we could also see some other faces in the community and hopefully have a more diverse cast there as well. I'll talk a little bit about BookCon because I was on a panel at BookCon this year and to my understanding it might have been a little bit different as compared to other panels. For my panel, we weren't originally invited as guests for BookCon. This was something that Natasha and Sasha had planned themselves, they went to BookCon asking for it and they set it all up and it was kind of among us to make questions and to put people on the panel.

And so when Natasha originally asked me I of course said yes. But we have been discussing like who else can be incorporate on this panel, we want it to be more widespread we don't want it to just be our friends sitting up there, but I will say it was very difficult finding people who were actually going to BookCon. I personally have no idea who was actually chosen to be on the panel for all I know BookCon could have chosen people out of our suggestions. But as I was sitting with Natasha and we were texting back and forth trying to figure out who can we actually ask to be on the panel, we realized we didn't know a ton of people that were actually going to BookCon so we had to really look into like can we invite this person oh, no they're away, can we invite this person oh, no they're not going.

So we had a very limited pool at least this year as to who we could invite. Although most of us on that panel were already friends, there really was a small group of BookTubers for us to choose from so I'm very glad that we did get Clau from Clau Reads Books who is a Mexican BookTuber on to our panel to represent some of the Latin American communities on BookTube - and that's something I was really happy to see but I just know in at least our certain circumstance, we didn't have a large pool of people to choose from and with other conventions, I don't know how they work. Maybe something to consider would be to reach out and to say hey like these are the people I want to see on your panels. I'm not the most knowledgeable about that.

That's just my interpretation of it so on the scope of BookTube just in general being super white and straight in able bodied because when you look at the people in a community who have tens and hundreds of thousands of subscribers a lot of them fit that description. One thing that is often left out let me talk about the top of BookTube is the Spanish-speaking Booktube community which is so much bigger than the English-speaking BookTube community. I think the English-speaking BookTubers do get more attention on BookTube but Spanish-speaking Booktube is so freaking huge there are people with 400,000 subscribers, a million subscribers, it is so much bigger than American and Australian and United Kingdom BookTube. I want to mention it because I don't think Latin American BookTubers get enough credit for all the work that they do in this community but I understand this question is geared towards the English-speaking BookTubers like myself.

And it's difficult to address this because the only thing I can think of is that like we don't choose who is at the top off the community, you guys do. I don't have x amount of subscribers, if x amount of you haven't subscribed to me. And I'm not saying this in a way where I'm like it's on you guys to make the top of BookTube more diverse. But the fact of the matter is like no matter what we as larger book tubers do, it's really up to you guys to subscribe to those people.

For example, I do not make BookTuber recommendations videos. It's not something I'm comfortable with, I just I can't imagine the thought of leaving somebody out of a video that I wanted to put on there or having somebody feel left out when they thought they should have been on that video not something I do personally, but when it is relevant to the content I'm talking about I do try and uplift other creators in the community for example in that LGBTQIAP+ recommendations video, I left a huge list of like 30 plus own voices reviews like are you following the BookTubers? And they're reviewers that I left in there? Did you even look at the list? So that's why this conversation is so difficult to navigate because I don't feel like there's just one source of where the lack of diverse creators come from. There's definitely more that  BookTubers at the top of the community could do to promote diverse creators, but ultimately those creators only rise to the top if you guys subscribe to them so take a look at your subscription box. Is it diverse enough for you, does that look like what you want the representation of the community to look like as a whole or is there more that you guys need to change? I know the moment I.

Really recognize the issue in my subscription box and the lack of diversity thereof was when I watched mynameismarines video on "Why is BookTube so White?" Which is a really fabulous video on this topic, so I will link that below. But I did get another question on where can I find BookTubers who are people of color and Marines being a very important voice in this community that I really admire, she has created a whole playlist of BookTubers of color which is also going to be linked below so take the first steps into diversifying the community and check out some of those creators because I personally love a lot of them. "What is the worst thing a new BookTuber can do?" Explicit self promotion is the worst. Anyone in the community will tell you that it's extremely aggravating to post a long video on a certain topic that you're very passionate and to have somebody say "Hey can you subscribe to my BookTube channel?" There are so many ways for you to get your name out there in the community whether that's interacting on other platforms in the online book community even just commenting on a video makes someone more likely to discover your channel.

But I promise you every creator really agrees the second you don't say anything other than please check out my new channel, I'm a new BookTuber. No one wants to click on it, so self-promotion is something I highly advise against because you can definitely grow in the community without it. "Do you think you have to be stylish, good at makeup, etc. To be a successful BookTuber?" Absolutely, not! Linda clarifies that this is especially directed towards the women in the community and I think the women who have a ton of subscribers in this community, we all just genuinely love makeup and clothes and that's why that's what's reflected in our videos.

But I do not think it's required whatsoever like you know BookTube is not that superficial. We're here to listen to you talk about books, it really doesn't matter what you look like. "Have you had problems with any BookTuber? And if so with you?" I personally don't consider myself to have ever had like real beef with another BookTuber and if I have its resolved now, and that's fine. There have definitely been blowouts that have been like publicized on BookTube.

I don't consider myself to be one of them. I genuinely like everyone I've interacted with in the community. Another frequent question is how can you grow your channel and how many subscribers should you have before trying to arrange author interviews and such? Like I said there's a million ways to grow your channel, by participating in stuff that is popular in the community for example if you see a tag going around, do the tag, someone's gonna search the tag and they're more likely to click on your video. Interacting on other parts of the community whether it be on Bookstagram, on Book Twitter, on Goodreads.

That's a great way for people to find exposure for your content and commenting on other videos, I think that is the most important thing that I can stress. If you're looking to have people discover you, be Interactive in the community. If you are talking about a certain book that you like and you have a channel attached to that someone is gonna click on that, and they're gonna want to watch your videos and you're more likely to get subscribers. Definitely interacting with the community on all different layers of the spectrum is where you're going to gain the most subscribers.

In regards to the how many subscribers should you have before reaching out for author interviews thing, I was pleasantly surprised to realize that it seems like authors don't really care about how many subscribers you have to do an interview. I have seen people with less than a thousand subscribers conduct interviews with New York Times bestselling authors. You're looking to interview an author like at an event that you're going to where they're gonna be in your area. Contact them on Twitter, try and reach out to them if you know their publicists email, if you do a little digging or little research or just reach out to the bookstore that they're holding the event at and say I'd really like to interview this author, who can I get in contact with? But I've seen a lot of different other interviews from all over the scale of different ranks of subscribers so surprisingly I don't think that's something that anyone should have to worry about and just you know put on your big person pants and take a risk and give it a go because I think a lot of people will be as surprised as I am.

"In what areas do you think BookTube as a community can improve?" I mean, we talked a ton about diverse representation on BookTube which is definitely something the community can improve on, it's something that is going to take a while to change because it does take a while for people to grow in the community but I think it is so important that we have voices from all different backgrounds having representation of the community and being able to speak to the thousands upon thousands of different people that are watching your channels. But just generally I would love it if the BookTube was a little bit more accepting of people having different opinions on books. Me saying I don't like your all-time favorite book is not a personal attack. Me saying I don't like this certain aspect of a book, I think this is problematic or I think that this book preaches a theme that I have a problem with, like that's not me saying like you have to feel those things, that's just saying this is how I feel, you can feel differently and we can disagree and that's fine, all of our opinions can exist at once.

But I think there is a big culture in the community of like everyone has to agree. Which I don't agree with personally and I think it would be nicer if everyone could just accept that we are all going to interpret things differently as reading as an individual experience. So that would be great! "Do you think some BookTubers feel pressured to rate books higher when they were sent them or their review is sponsored?" I personally have never felt that pressure, I think especially in the beginning when you start to work with different companies, there is a little bit of anxiety that comes with like not giving a glowing review. But especially when doing promotion for different companies, you know if I don't like a book I'm gonna tell you why I don't like it, I might tell you what I do like about it to see if this is still something that you could enjoy which I try and do for all of my books in general.

But I've never felt that pressure and I can't speak for other BookTubers but from those conversations I've had about the community with other BookTubers, I think all of us are just very honest in our opinions, when we really like something we tell you and if we don't we tell you that as well. "Do you ever feel confined by being a BookTuber when it comes to making content that may have no connection to books?" Absolutely, I have placed myself in a box of sitting in front of my camera and talking about books. The thought of making other content terrifies me because I am so nervous that it won't have the same reaction, not because people won't be interested in it cuz I get, I have requests for a lot of different content. But I am so nervous that it won't level up to the quality I have of my book videos, but I am very comfortable talking about books I can ramble on for hours about books in the book community and like have no worries.

But when it comes to things like hooping or psychology which people frequently ask me to make videos about, I. Have never had the experience of talking in front of a camera like that, so it is a transition that something I'm trying to really work on but I have so much anxiety talking about other things other than BookTube on my channel just because it's totally out of my comfort zone even if it's something I really love I'm just not used to making videos about those things. "Do you feel BookTube has become more of a job than something you do as a hobby or because you enjoy it?" I do consider BookTube to be a job, it is a really great source of income for me especially because I'm able to do what I would be doing anyways even if I wasn't getting paid like it's a real big asset in that part and I do like saying it's a job to people like in my community, in my hometown who aren't BookTubers because just saying YouTube is a job, it's cool. It sounds cool, but primarily I consider BookTube a hobby it is something I love doing I feel so energized after filming and editing and posting videos and interacting with you guys, it is a true passion of mine and it doesn't feel like a job even though certain aspects of it might be more related to like job duties like I love everything I do on BookTube so I definitely consider it more of a hobby.

"You said you try to read critically which I do what do you think our fellow BookTubers do it and do they point out problematic aspects on books?" Like I said, I do my very best to read critically I try and really analyze a book as opposed to just flipping through it for enjoyment. That's just personally how I like to read books now, and it has nothing to really do with YouTube. But when I do notice that something is problematic or somebody has brought that to my attention in the community I will let you know about it. Even if it's not something I personally agree with I think that everyone should have the opportunity to examine all opinions on a book before they want to read it, if that's something that they want to do.

I follow a ton of creators in the community that do that as well and read very critically and are always open to talking about difficult conversations in literature. But I also follow some creators who don't necessarily do that and don't talk about problematic aspects in books as much. Do I think those people should?
Absolutely. I think we should really normalize these conversations of talking about problematic content in books especially in the instance of our favorites.

I think shying away from the conversation is worse than having it whatsoever like I think it's fine to read problematic books, and I think it's fine to love problematic books like I love so many problematic books. But that doesn't mean that I should not talk about them and I it's really important that creators in the community are talking about these things even if it's not something they agree with or it's something they don't want to comment on just throw it out there, be like "hey this is something people in the community have found to be an issue with, if you want to learn more about it, you can read it in the description. "What are your thoughts on the male to female ratio in BookTube and any advice for aspiring male BookTubers?" There is definitely an imbalance I'd say there's like 40 female BookTubers to one male BookTuber in the community. Might be a stretch but honestly might be undermining that ratio a little bit.

But my advice for aspiring male BookTubers is make your channel, post videos, your voice is needed in this community. We don't have enough of you and I know for a fact that there are other voices in the community who are looking for people to identify with. There is also in addition to the playlist people of color BookTubers, there is a playlist of male BookTubers that is constantly being updated as well, and I think it was created by Connor O'Brien so I will link that below as well if you're looking for some male BookTubers in the community. "How do you get in contact with authors and publishers to get ARCS? Can you tell us how an email to those people should look like?" I literally have a video entirely dedicated to that topic, it's part of my BookTubing 101 Series, it's all about how to get ARCS, all the different ways and how to email someone for ARCS.

That's in the description below if you want to learn more about that because that video I'm very proud of. "Are there any differences in between your expectations of BookTube and how it would be - to how it is?" I think my answer to this question is very similar to that of the question in regards to how do I feel about having such a larger audience now? Like BookTube is the same for me. It is the same loving, warm, welcoming community of people who gave me a voice and allowed me to talk about books for the first time in my life. But I have realized the size of BookTube, and there are so many more people that are willing to you throw out criticisms no matter how offended they are about BookTubers then I originally anticipated and that sucks because it is a damper on the community when people are spewing lies and misconceptions about BookTubers, and it's a big letdown, but ultimately like the community the people I am interacting with every day are exactly what I expected it to be and I couldn't be happier with that.

To end on a happy note, "What is the favorite memory or the best opportunity that you've had because of BookTube?" My immediate answer for this is always be friends that I have gained through BookTube. In the last three years, I have made so many amazing lifelong friends that I could not be more grateful for, that I would not have had had I not joined BookTube. These are the people that were the first to really accept me for who I am and to not make fun of me for being a reader or for having quirks or different interests like a large part of why I am so confident is because the people that I. Have surrounded myself in this community have just been so supportive and amazing and I couldn't be more happy to know them.

In regards to the best opportunity though it's absolutely the relationship I've formed with Cassandra Clare like the fact that I was able to meet this woman four months into my BookTube channel, and I have interviewed her twice has just been unreal. The fact that her books are the reason I started my channel to the present where I have met her five times, I have her handwriting tattooed on my back, I'm now getting the books of hers that I've loved early and I'm able to review them before a release date and the fact that I've been able to interview her twice and have had some really amazing conversations with her has just been unreal. She's just truly so amazing and kind to me and they always say don't meet your idols but I have made the best decisions in getting to know Cassandra Clare through my BookTube channel and I definitely think my BookTube channel has been a driving force in that. So I'm very thankful for the friends I've gotten as well as all the opportunities I've gotten with publishers and authors whatnot but I'm especially grateful for what has come of me starting Cassandra Clare books to where I am now with her as a person.

So that is really it for my honest Q&A about BookTube. I really enjoyed being able to sit down and talk about all the positives and some negatives about the community and it was a lot of fun for me, so I hope you guys enjoyed it. Um, because we're on the note of BookTube, I haven't made a BookTubing 101 video in eight months, please let me know what is something you would like tips specifically on within the BookTube community? I've left my playlists below if you want to check out the types of videos I posted already, but I'm really craving for video ideas in regards to BookTubing 101. So if there was a video for me to ask for that I feel like if this one let me know what you want to know, but that is it for this video thank you guys so much for watching, thank you guys so much for all of your questions because they were so illuminating and fantastic and exactly what I was looking for but thank you guys for watching and I'll see you soon for a new video.

Bye! {Outro}.