People are starting many kinds of YouTube channels in recent days. Booktube channels are one of a kind.
The popularity of Booktube has also skyrocketed. Booktube means those YouTube channels that create content related to books.
This article will cover steps on how to start a YouTube channel reading books. People are starting YouTube channels for reading and discussing books, book reviews, and many more regardless of age.
If you are interested in starting a YouTube channel reading books or a booktube, you are in for a treat.
I’ll try to provide you with tips on how to get started in YouTubing, choosing your niche, what equipment you’ll need, creating content for your channel, and promoting your channel.
It doesn’t matter if you are a new reader who found a new passion for reading books or an experienced bookworm who likes to read books and you’d like to create a new YouTube channel sharing your love for books this guide will help you get started.
What Is the Meaning of Booktube?
As I’ve mentioned earlier, booktubing simply means operating a YouTube channel by creating book reading content, book reviews, discussing a book and its story, etc. All the content in a booktube is related to books.
Booktubers generally create content focusing on books that they are currently reading or popular books. A booktube channel can focus on various kinds and genres of books.
But I would recommend starting with a niche booktube if you are interested in creating a booktube channel. Because multi-niche booktubes generally don’t do well as they don’t focus on a specific audience.
Booktube: A Short History
Before I begin to discuss the steps on how to start a YouTube channel reading books—let’s start with a short history of booktube to help you get a little motivated. This will help satiate your curiosity.
Well, it’s hard to tell who exactly started this booktube concept but a community started to show up around 2008-2010. A few years after that, booktubing has grown in popularity. People started liking listening to content on reading books, and book reviews.
Nowadays, many content creators can be seen who are actively contributing to this booktube community.
Many of them have a respectable amount of subscribers as well. No doubt that they are happy with what they are creating.
Even though booktube has grown in popularity—the majority of the content that dominates on YouTube is gaming content, musical content, and entertainment-comedy content.
But booktube is growing as well and I’ll say that booktube can grow more because more and more content creators are creating channels related to this.
Well, that has a reason too—people are starting to like listening to book reviews and finding out what others think about books that they love reading.
Why You Should Start a Booktube Channel
Recently, the popularity of booktubes has increased. If you are a book lover and you want to share your feelings, and reviews of the books then you can do so by simply creating a booktube channel.
Maybe you want to connect with other book readers and discuss a book—this can be a great reason to start a booktube channel too.
Even if you want to read the books to others you can do so—but this can be risky because most of the books are copyrighted by the author of the book.
So, reading a book exactly as it is on YouTube can be put under copyright infringement.
Instead, you can create content on a summary of a book that you love, and discuss certain characters and plot points of a book.
Even you can create content by buying new books and unboxing them. This will help you gain an audience easily because many people usually look for this type of content before reading books.
I’d also recommend putting in content related to your personal opinions about a book as people generally look out for that in videos.
How Much Do BookTubers Earn?
It’s pretty much similar to other YouTubers. Booktubers can earn money through various revenue streams such as advertisements, sponsorships, Patreon, selling merch, and affiliate income.
This usually depends on how big the channel is—meaning how many views and watch hours the channel’s content gets. Channels with a larger audience will have more opportunities for sponsorships and ad revenue.
Even the type of content can impact the earnings of a booktuber. Some of the videos may do well and some won’t do well. But that doesn’t mean you should stop considering opening a booktube. It has vast opportunities for earnings once you start growing.
Here’s a video by Emmmabooks explaining how booktubers earn:
How To Start a YouTube Channel Reading Books: 3 Steps of Getting Started
In this section, I’ll share the steps required to get started with a YouTube channel reading books or a booktube. So, let’s get started!
1. Determine Your Niche and Create a Channel
This is important if you are new to this. Because most often channels that don’t focus on niche content don’t do well.
They just create a channel and start uploading various types of videos. They don’t focus on the genre of books in their videos. Well, this doesn’t help a new channel at all. They start getting views from various types of audiences but their long-term followers don’t grow.
Instead, if you focus on a niche or the genre of books that you shoot for a booktube video at the start then eventually people will start to know your presence on YouTube and you will start gaining subscribers and followers.
I’d recommend you start with a specific niche and genre of book, and eventually, you will grow. Once you have a decent follower then you can go for other genres and grow your target niche.
Think about what you’re passionate about and what type of book you love the most. This will help you create videos easily because who doesn’t love to talk about books they love right?
Once you made up your mind it’s time to create a YouTube channel.
Make sure to select a good name because that will be your brand name. Upload a great profile picture as well.
Provide a brief description of the channel and put all your social links in the About section—this will help people find you easily.
2. Setup Your Equipment and Start Creating a Content Plan
To create the videos you’ll need a computer and a webcam. You could even start with a smartphone camera if you don’t have a dedicated camera yet. This is enough if you are just starting.
However, if you want to invest in this then you can go for a good camera, microphone, and even paid video editing software.
This is not necessary if you don’t have the money to buy the items. Because you can always upgrade once you start to grow.
Once you’ve got everything ready it’s time to start creating content plans. Plan out your content ideas, including book reviews, discussions about the book you love, recommendations, discussing certain plot points and characters of books and stories, and reading challenges.
Planning out content will help you stay organized and not get all over the place with your videos.
You should also plan out your upload schedule and determine how often you want to upload new content.
If you have an upload schedule people that follow the channel will know when to look for your new videos. This also helps your channel grow.
3. Start Filming, Editing, and Uploading Content
Now comes the main part which is filming the videos, editing, and uploading them. Once you have all the equipment and your content plan ready—you can start filming videos based on your content plan.
You could start with simple book reviews or talk about the books that you love if you are unsure what to film at first. Just don’t make it over-complicated and share your thoughts on the book and the story. Once you start ideas will keep coming.
Also, don’t worry if your videos don’t turn out how you wanted them to. It doesn’t have to be perfect. You just have to continue with it and eventually, you will get better once you start gaining more experience as a creator.
After filming the video, make sure to edit it with free or paid video editing software(whatever you choose). Cut out any bloopers that you may have, add some chill background music, and put some effects on your videos to make them more interesting.
Make sure to go through the video once you complete editing it to see if it is engaging and easy to watch. If you are not happy you can go back and add some more edits here and there.
After editing, make sure to upload the video according to your uploading schedule. Remember, you need to upload videos consistently if you want to grow. Hard work pays off here.
Bonus Step: Promote Your Channel
After you upload your videos, find ways to promote your content. Share your videos on social media and other platforms to reach a wider audience.
You could even create an entire blog dedicated to books and put your videos in book review articles. This way you will get more visitors from Google as well.
Find ways to collaborate with other booktubers. Once you have decent subscribers you can even invite other booktubers to make exciting content. Join podcasts and promote your channel there.
Participate in various book-related challenges and follow the trend. Be active in various booktube communities. Subscribe to other booktubers and leave comments on similar videos.
Reply to your video’s comments and engage with other book lovers.
These are some of the ways of gaining more popularity.
Some FAQs
I’ve listed some of the frequently asked questions about reading books on a YouTube channel. Find out the answers below:
Is BookTube Different From YouTube?
Booktube isn’t different from YouTube, it’s just a subcategory of YouTube that focuses on creating book-related content. Booktubers are YouTubers who create videos discussing and reviewing books.
They also share book recommendations, participate in reading challenges, and engage with their audience on various book-related topics.
Can I Monetize YouTube Reading Books?
Yes, you can. As I’ve mentioned earlier that booktubers earn in various ways. You can monetize your channel with things like advertisements and sponsorships.
Sharing affiliate links is also a way of monetizing a booktube. You can share affiliate links for buying books, reading glasses, and other related things.
Some booktubers even create Patreon which can help creators earn directly from their fans and supporters.
They share Patreon-exclusive content to make more money. Sometimes booktubers can earn from selling merch as well.
How Do You Get Subscribers on BookTube?
Simply put, you need to be consistent in uploading quality videos to gain more subscribers. You shouldn’t expect to gain 1 Million subscribers overnight. It takes time and effort. It’s a slow process.
But I can give you some tips to speed up the process. You can—
- Use relevant and eye-catching thumbnails to attract more viewers
- Engage with your audience, this will help you in the long run
- Collaborate with other booktubers
- Participate in book community events, and podcasts to strengthen your network and promote your channel
- Share your channel on various social media
Wrapping Up
I’ve tried to cover how to create a booktube channel in this article. In conclusion, starting a BookTube channel can be a great way to share your love of books with the world.
This will also help you connect with like-minded people. By following the tips and steps outlined in this post, you can create a successful booktube channel.
But don’t forget—the key to success on BookTube is consistency. You need to have patience and continuously create quality content. Creating regular content that is both entertaining and informative will go a long way to help you grow your channel.
Starting a booktube channel can be very fun if you are a genuine book lover. You get to share your love for books with the whole world, that’s the exciting part.
I hope you found this article helpful and good luck opening a booktube channel. Thanks for reading.
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