Different Platforms for Sharing Your Bookish Obsession Online

Introduction

If you’ve been following other content creators for your book recommendations, you may find yourself wanting to become one yourself. What could be more fun than talking about the books you’ve read and loved all the time? There are so many types of content you can produce and so many different places where you can talk about books, it can be hard to decide what to post and where. Realistically, you should just start posting wherever it is that you hang out the most. And then, when you feel up to it, you can slowly expand to other places.

Find new friends who can gush with you about books all day long. Started a new reading hobby and have no one IRL to chat with? There are so many different platforms online where you can talk about your favorite books.

Depending on the platform you want to use for sharing your book obsession, you’ll be working with different types of media: short form text, long form text, still photos or graphics, video, and audio. When picking out a platform, consider the type of media you’re comfortable creating. The other thing to consider is whether you’d like to collect your own followers, or contribute to the overall conversation in another established community. When you use something like Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, or your own website, people tend to remember that they’re interacting with you personally as an individual and will follow you specifically. If you’re posting reviews on Goodreads or interacting in someone else’s book club, it’s possible that people might not be following you in particular, even if you’ve become friends within that platform.

Twitter

Twitter is in the process of some overhaul right now with a change in ownership and leadership. If you’re not already a Twitter user, I don’t recommend starting one. It’s good for short one-liner types of posts due to the limits in character count. Images and videos are allowed, but they are not the primary form of media.

Instagram

Instagram is one of my favorite places to look at book recommendations and reviews.
This platform can be broken down into three different areas: Posts, Reels, and Stories.
- Posts are square images and videos that show up on the feed. This is a great place for still photos of books, your book journal pages, or graphics that you designed. You can add up to ten images per post that viewers can swipe through the look at.
- Reels are up to 60 second videos that are vertically formatted. These show up in the regular feed and in the Reels feed.
- Stories are vertically formatted photos or videos that are on a separate feed at the top of the app and displayed only to your followers. Stories stay active for only 24 hours (or less if you delete them), so it’s good for fleeting content, like your current read or interactive polls.

TikTok

Vertically formatted short-form video. While you can post up to 3 minute videos (or possibly 10 minutes if you account allows it), I recommend sticking to shorter videos to keep viewers’ attention. Depending on your level of enthusiasm or whether you’re trying to bait the algorithm, you can easily work through different trends on TikTok, with popular sounds, memes, and expressive reactions to what you’re reading. See what you like to watch and then try it yourself. Videos don’t have to feature you talking to camera (but if you do, and you’re holding a book, I beg you please to use the inverted feature so that people can read the book title without a mirror).

Tools I use for Instagram and TikTok

iPhone 13 Pro Max for photo and video
Tablet Stand Holder to hold my phone for video
Softbox Lighting so I can record in early mornings
White posterboard to help bounce light
Canva Pro for graphics (click for a free trial for Pro version)

YouTube

Horizontally formatted long-form video. Most booktubers film face-to-camera and talk about the books they’re read. That type of filming doesn’t work for my schedule, so my account has voiceover slide presentations of books, which can be an option for you too.
There’s also a Shorts side that shows vertically formatted videos less than 60 seconds. If you’re already posting on TikTok or IG Reels, you can re-purpose those same videos here, which is my approach. I use SnapTik to take the TikTok logo off and then upload to YouTube Shorts.

Website or Blog

For long-form media combining text and photos or video, you could set up your own website and blog. For this one, you’d pick a website hosting platform and pay for a custom domain name. There’s a bit of tech involved with building your own website, but there are plenty of templates and tutorials for whichever platform you choose. I personally use Bluehost for website hosting and a domain name (that’s the URL link that says www.randomolive.com) and run WordPress on it for the blog. The different hosting websites have a super helpful support and tutorial side on their sites if you want to go that route.

Tools I use for blogging

Podcast

If talking is more to your style, consider a podcast. This is long-form audio that I have no experience in making, but there is likely to be some start up cost here for audio hosting, and then a learning curve for getting set up on podcast apps, audio recording and editing.

Email Newsletter

With a lot of the other platforms above, you’re at the mercy of the platform that you’re using. There could be a massive crash of those websites or your account could be blocked for any reason. One way to keep in touch with people who follow you is to collect their email addresses in an email newsletter service.
It’s up to you to ask people to join the list, but you can promote it on your existing social channels. The email addresses can be downloaded at any point as a list or spreadsheet and migrated to any email marketing service you choose.
So what do I use my email newsletter for? I send updates on new bookish printables I’ve made, links to new videos I posted on YouTube, links to book reviews on my blog, and links to latest TikTok videos. (You can click here to subscribe to my emails if that interests you!) You can choose to send whatever you want at whatever frequency you want.
I personally use Flodesk for my email platform because it’s a flat rate, regardless of the number of subscribers you have, and because the layouts inside it are aesthetically pleasing. (If you use my link here to sign up, you’ll get 50% off your first year of Flodesk)
Note: If you’re going to send any bulk emails, it’s important to pay attention to the anti-SPAM laws associated with it and read the fine print within the email service.

Final Tips

Being a bookish content creator can be both fun and stressful if you let it.
Keep your goals in mind to find the motivation to keep going.
- Do you want to find new friends?
  - Find new books to read?
  - Or someday monetize your obsession with books?
You don’t need to post all the things to all the places. Pick the platforms you enjoy and the types of posts you want to create.

Download the full color and photo-filled guide! Available for pay-what-you-want pricing (which basically means free, but I’ll love you forever if you can contribute to my book fund).

I’ll be following this up with more guides and recommendations for monetizing your passion, so if you want to know when that’s available, sign up to be notified here.

Thanks so much for reading this post! Looking for more bookish resources and romance book reviews? Read the archives!