Hi everyone, it's Lauren and welcome back
to my series on how to start a booktube
channel. I will leave a link to this series in
the corner up here and in the
description box below, where you can find
all sorts of videos on the whole process
from getting the equipment, to planning
to editing, to uploading a booktube video
When I asked you guys what questions you
had about starting a booktube channel
overwhelmingly the biggest response I
got was how do you come up with ideas
for videos? How do I schedule my videos?
When do I film them? How do I get
motivated to film? So this video is going
to be all about that topic - how to film,
when to film, what you should film
because to be honest, that's something that can be
very daunting before you start your own
channel and it kind of took me a long
time to get comfortable with my own
schedule and get everything
straight in my own head. So I'm hopefully
going to be able to answer most of those
questions today, if there's anything
that I miss out or anything else you'd
like to ask around this topic then
please leave me a comment below and I'll
try and answer it there. I'll be giving
some general tips in the first half of
the video and then i'm going to take you
over to my laptop and we can have a look
at the schedule that I have, and also
look at what my booktube channel was
when I first started it because I think
people can get very intimidated looking
at people's channels that have been going
I mean I've been going for like two and a half
years, there's other people who have been
doing this so much, much longer than that
and it can feel quite daunting to be
honest, but I think it always helps
looking back at where people started
that helped me feel more comfortable that
most people don't know what they're
doing when they get started so you don't
need to have it all figured out right
away. So the first thing I want to talk
about is coming up with ideas for videos. A
lot of people ask me this - how do you
come up with interesting ideas and what
should I talk about? And to that I kind
of say you can talk about anything you
want! I know that's not very helpful when
you're asking for some direction and someone says
'you choose!' but honestly the thing about
booktube specifically is that we're all
talking about books ,but we all are
reading different books and even if we
do all read the same one, a lot of us
have very different opinions on it. I'm
going to get a very different reading
from the book than you will and the
reason we're all here and all
talking about it is because we find that
interesting and we like that community
spirit, that book club feel where we can
all discuss our different views on the
same book. So you don't really
have to be that innovative to start
a booktube channel - all you need to
do basically is talk about the
books that you're reading.There are lots
of formulas that you can follow if you
want, obviously you don't have to, but
when you first start I think it is quite
helpful to have a bit of structure in
place, so you can do monthly reading
wrap-ups if you like, I tend to do one wrap
up a month, I sometimes do two. Some
people do weekly reading wrap-ups
it just depends how much you're reading and
how much time you have to film! You can
do book hauls, you can do TBR lists which
is like a tTo Be Read' list for the
coming month. I tend to do those about four
times a year just because I think it's
kind of interesting having a reading
plan I don't like sticking to a plan too
much so I don't do them monthly. You can
do tag videos, you don't have to wait
for someone to thag you in a video in
order to do it, if you see it going
around booktube or an old one that you
want to do you can just do that yourself
and a tag video is where somebody comes
up with a list of questions and then
it's like a game of tag, they can tag
their friends to answer the same
questions, so you know what questions
people are going to be answering or at
least the topic it's going to be on
everyone's going to have slightly
different answers and if you want to do
an old tag video feel free to go
ahead! I know that before I started I had
lots of ideas of things I wanted to do
but I didn't really know how I was going
to do them and I also wanted to do them
perhaps after I felt a bit more
comfortable in my channel and I knew what I
was doing so I always had the idea to do
the Page to Screen series, which is a
series I do where I read a classic
book and then watch all of the TV and
film adaptations of it and I could sort
of see that in my head but I didn't know
how to get pictures on screens so I
didn't do that for ages until I'd worked
out like how to edit my videos so that i
could put pictures up, but apart from
that I didn't have loads of ideas to be
honest. I did make quite a lot of
notes because I was very worried that I
would get to a week and I wouldn't have
any content and I wouldn't know what to do
I don't know why I was so worried about that
but I did make loads and loads list but
actually the list of video ideas I made
before i started my channel, most of them
I've not even done because I've done
different stuff and I think that's what
you tend to find. Once you actually start
this, you start talking to a camera, you
develop your own style, you work out what
books you like reading a lot more because
you're paying more attention to it
and ideas do just come. For the first few
months of my channel I made sure I had a
planned video every single week.
I uploaded every Sunday if I could and if
I didn't have an idea for one Sunday...
like say I started in January and if I
didn't have ideas for like the third Sunday
in February I'd be like 'Oh God, what am I going to
do that week?' and then, you know, someone
might tag me to do a video and I'd be like 'oh thanks God,
thank God they tagged me because
otherwise I wouldn't have had a video to go
up!' and I just...why was that an issue?
I don't know why I was concerned. YouTube
analytics and advice is always like
have an upload schedule, upload regularly
make sure your viewers know where you're
uploading...but let's be honest, when we
first start, I mean like my first video
when it got four views I like 'Oh my God!
Four people!!' no one's watching you! No
one is watching you when you start, so it
doesn't matter if you upload regularly
You can start your channel and
suddenly have ten videos straight
away if you want or you can start your
channel and then just kind of drip feed
videos on as you get more comfortable
and you don't have to have an upload
schedule within the first couple of
months of starting, absolutely not. So you
don't have to have this concern about
ideas and whether you're going to have
enough content because really at the end
of the day it doesn't matter! I actually
think in a way there should be more
content for you when you first start
your own YouTube channel than where I am
now because there's a whole backlog of
books that you would have read in your
life up until the point where you
started reading. I know in the first
couple of months of me starting I did
several singular book reviews about
books I'd read just...
I think my first video was a December wrap up
and then I just spoke about some
books that I'd read maybe in like October or
November that year that I really enjoyed
and that I hadn't featured in a video
and I want to talk about. You can do
stuff to introduce people to your
channel like these are my top 5 books of
all time and you know, because people
don't know you yet so you've really got
a vast amount of options for what you can
talk about in those first couple of
months. You also have no idea what your
channel is going to be like before you
start it. I don't really, now, like the
name Reads and Daydreams, I'm quite
embarrassed by that because I I didn't
really know what I was going to be like
on camera and there were some videos
that I watched and I thought, oh Ivreally like that
style, it's quite sort of cool and calm
and dreamy and really light and airy and I was like
'yeah, that will be me"' but that's not
really what I'm like
well that's not really my personality so
I don't really think that encompasses
what this channel is now that I've done
it. Too late now because I can't change it
but this is just an example that you
don't really know, you do just need to
start and you can start as basic as you
like and those ideas and that
inspiration and that motivation to do
something a little bit different and
carve your own niche in the booktube
community, that will come with
time and experience. In terms of
scheduling, like when I film and when I
upload, I try and upload every Sunday and
then if I have another video to upload
that week I tend to do on a Thursday.
Don't really know why, that's just what I
do and that'd judy what's easiest for me and
I also try to be a kind of a week ahead
and have a video ready to upload like
already that week so I'm not scrambling
around to get my video done that Sunday
and uploaded that Sunday evening. That's
what works to me I know my friend Jen
Campbell films and uploads like
straight away, she'll film a video, edit it
and it goes up as soon as she's finished
it and she won't schedule it at all and
that works for her, but you know it just
depends what your schedule is. I don't
think you need to worry too much about
making sure that you have a video up on
a certain day every week, you don't need
to worry too much about when you don't
film it's just about finding a time that
work for you really, so each video that
I film probably takes about 40 minutes I
would say to actually film, and then I've
at least got an hour and a half of
editing, like at least, plus doing closed
captions after that, so I would say each
video for me probably takes about three
hours in all, like across the whole
week and that's three hours that I find
time for and I enjoy doing it and it's
not that big a drain on my life and it's
only a drain if you make it a drain, it's
only stressful if you give yourself
those deadlines like oh my god I need to
get this video up by this time on this
day, which like let's be honest like our
audience don't notice, I really doubt if
you guys noticed until I just said that
I upload on Sundays! There's nothing
worse than overestimating how important
you to everybody else that'swatching your
videos and especially if you're going to
get stressed about it, so if you can't
find the time to film one week, doesn't
matter. If you've got loads of time and
you can upload three or four times a
week, that's fantastic but it
it shouldn't be a drain in your life, it's
a hobby at the end of the day. So I'm
going to take you to my laptop now and
we can have a peek into sort of how my mind
works in terms of my scheduling and how
I come up with my ideas. I will also look
at the oldest video...I haven't watched
any of my old videos and I'm not going
to do that right now, but yeah look back
at my first maybe 20 videos and you can
see kind of what I was doing at that
time. So this is what I use for my
schedule I actually use an excel document
where I put all of the days of the year
in there and then I kind of color code
when I want to upload videos and I have
a little code for days I intend to film
which is light yellow, if I've already got
an idea planned for that day then I make it
an orange color and once I've filmed the
video I make it green and then once I've
uploaded a video and make it blue. I
really like being able to look at the
whole year in this way, this is just how
my brain works. So this is my schedule
for this year and you can see that I
haven't uploaded one week and I've got
kind of a lack of ideas on this side
for the last month and then coming up
I've just got loads of ideas which I
have no time to film! Let's go and have
a look at my channel, so this is what my channel
looks like now. If you go through onto my
videos we can look at what my earliest
ones are and you can see the difference
between the look that I have on this
page and then if we go to the oldest
ones, oh here we go, everything is very
very different. So this is what I did in
my old flat so I think the first few
videos I have is a December wrap up, a
Christmas book haul and some book
reviews on stuff I'd read already, a TBR
I mean and a tag video, the booktube
newbie tag, like that's all I'd done
none of this is innovative or
interesting or anything that you
wouldn't find on anybody else's booktube
channel.This is also quite interesting
for looking at the types of thumbnails
I've got and I've got different lighting
in like every single one of these videos
slightly different colors in the
background and my thumbnails are all
different as well so you can see that
I'm just trying different things out and
I haven't really found my place yet, I
don't really know what I'm doing. Things
did change when I moved house and I've
got slightly different backgrounds there
but you know for the first year really
when I looked back at this I was quite
surprised for the first year everything
I did was almost solely books apart from
when i went to Latin America and
everything is very very basic
there's nothing very different or
imaginative about any of the videos
really, so it really is a process, it's a
frustratingly long and embarrassing
process and I'm probably going to look
back at the videos I'm doing now in a
couple of years' time and think they're
really bad and be embarrassed again but
you know that's the thing, you
just have to make something and you have
to do something and it won't be perfect
first time but that's okay because
you're never going to get better if you
don't try. So I really hope that this was
helpful I don't know what advice I can
give really about coming up with ideas
and planning videos other than just do
it and I get the anxiety and I get the
concern and you kind of want someone to
help you and tell you what to do but I
can't tell you what to do because
everybody is different. You are you and
your style is going to be completely
different to mine and completely
different to anybody else's on this
platform so you do just have to
start, have to give it a go and see where
it takes you really. My next video in
this series is going to be all about
talking in front of a camera, how to get
used to it how to get rid of your tics
and mannerisms which I have not
obviously achieved in myself quite yet
and also how to talk about books or how
to summarize them, how to get your point
across. So I hope that you enjoyed this
video, please give it a thumbs up if you
did like it and you thought it was helpful
and I will see you next time, bye!