BookTube is at its absolute best right now. It just keeps getting better and
better. So in this Book Break video, I wanted to celebrate some of the coolest
things I've seen on BookTube recently. And I've been watching BookTube for
years, and it's so cool to see quite how much it's changed. So in the early years
of BookTube, the most popular things were single book reviews, and you barely see
those at all these days! If anything, you might see them in a reading vlog, seeing
someone's experience of reading a book, but they're still pretty rare. The
other things that were really popular back in the early days were challenges
and tags, which then kind of faded away, but have now come back into fashion.
So you're seeing way more of those, which is really fun and nostalgic. We actually
did a challenge video on Book Break recently, which I will link to in the
description box below. So there are some things that are familiar but BookTube
is this really exciting place right now, with people just coming up with more and
more creative ideas. So I want to talk about some of my favourite BookTube
trends at the moment. So one area that's getting really experimental at the
moment is readathons. I don't know what the first readathon
was, but one of the biggest early readathons was BookTubeAThon, which is
now called The Reading Rush, and is still going strong, getting bigger and better
every year. But there are so many new readathons springing up at the moment,
and what I love is seeing people who've taken them beyond just being a list of
prompts to work through, and actually into a kind of game format. So Rachael
Marie for example came up with The Bookie Trials, which is this quest, and she
divides everybody into teams and you're competing against each other. So as well
as having prompts there, you actually work your way through a map over the
course of the month, that the read-a-thon lasts, so that's really cool. Book Roast
does a Harry Potter themed magical read-a-thon. We made a video recently
talking about the OWLs, which I will link to, but this one is based on the OWLs and
NEWTs Wizarding exams. And so for two months of the year you sit your exams.
Each exam has a different book prompt that you have to read to complete that
qualification, and then Book Roast has actually created this careers guide, so
you have to take certain exams to qualify for different Wizarding careers.
And then there's Simsathon, which is hosted by biancareads, with various
co-hosts each time. And this one is based on The Sims game and its various
expansion packs. So for this one reading different
books is equivalent to completing various life stages in the Sims. And you
can work your way up the career ladder. it's really clever and there's a
whole point system so you can see at the end of the month how well you did.
They're all amazing, I will link below to everything I mentioned in this video so
do go check them out. Then the next massive BookTube trend is reading vlogs,
where somebody films their experience of reading a particular book, or a series of
books, or just everything they read over a certain period of time. And reading
vlogs I don't think were really a thing in the early days of BookTube, but now
they are massive. It seems like almost half of the BookTube videos I see are
now reading vlogs. So recently I've been absolutely loving Lauren and the Books
does these great vlogs of her cosy reading nights, which make you feel really
cosy and snuggly. Emma Tobias vlogged for The Reading Rush and I loved what she
did of picking a kind of different aesthetic every day, and theming her vlog
around that. And even Hannah Witton did a reading vlog recently that was just
showing what she read over a four-day period. So these vlogs don't have to be
themed a certain way, it can just be a way of feeling like you spent time with
somebody and watched what their reading routine is like, as well as
getting a little glimpse into their personal life. But then a sub-genre of
reading vlogs are secret TBR vlogs. So the queen of these is BooksandLala,
I think she invented them, she definitely popularised them. And this is where she
will spend a month reading books on a certain theme, so it might be reading
books recommended for her star sign, or it might be rereading her favourite books
from fifth grade, and then at the end of the month she will upload this video
showing what she's been doing. And what's really fun along the way is that she
will often post pictures to Instagram showing some of the books she's reading
and let people try and guess what the secret theme is. So BooksandLala
may be the queen of these, but they are now another massive sub-genre on
booktube. So many people do videos like these and they're always so exciting to
watch. And gabbyreads actually did one recently where she read Books and
Lala's favourite books, and she vlogged the whole thing, and then revealed at the end
what she thought of them. So those are the secret TBR videos, but TBR games is
also another massive trend on booktube. And this is where people come up with
really creative ways to pick what they're going to read next. So Becca and
the Books for example created Bookopoly, which is her own customised
Monopoly board that she works around and it
chooses which books she's going to read next.
And then Cody's Book Corner has the wheel of TBR that she spins every month
to help her decide what to read. Rachael Marie does Rachel's realm which is
this whole kind of fantasy inspired map, and she pulls different tokens out of a
bag, which have different book challenges on there. Bowties and Books has Jesse's
Deck of TBR. They actually printed a whole custom pack of cards and the cards
have different TBR challenges. People just get so inventive with these. And I
think both the secret TBR videos and the TBR games have really encouraged
BookTubers recently to read books outside their comfort zones, because they
set themselves these challenges. So that's the next trend that I wanted to
mention is people deliberately picking up books they otherwise wouldn't have
read. So megwithbooks has this series where she reads "my first ever thriller"
or "my first ever graphic novel", and she's actually discovered new five star books
from doing these. There's even an Out of My Comfort Zone book tag going around!
And I think because of this trend for BookTubers stretching the genres that
they read, we now get a lot of content encouraging us to pick up books outside
our comfort zone as well. So Jean recently did a video that was
'recommending a book from every genre' that had over 50 book recommendations in
one video. BooksandLala did one quite recently that was 'if you like this YA
book, you'll like this thriller'. Harriet Rosie did one that was recommending
short story collections based on novels you like. Overall BookTube is just
becoming increasingly open to readers of all genres which is so exciting. Now
another trend that has sprung up from BookTube having been around for quite a
while now is reaction videos. So this is where people react to old videos of
theirs, maybe reacts to their first ever haul, or reacts to their first TBR, and see
'did I actually ever read those books?' A really really popular reaction series a
few years ago was BooksandLala's closet unhaul. So this is where she
would react to a book haul video from a few years before, and she then had to
read all of the books from the haul that month or give them away. And another
really popular one you'll see on quite a few channels is Mercy's Bookish Musings
started this five star predictions trend, where she talked about the books
that she predicted she was going to love from her TBR. So lots of people did this
and then started reacting to their five-star predictions once they'd read
all the books, to see if they were right or not. A general trend on YouTube, not
just limited to BookTube, is that videos are getting longer and longer. It used to
be that you wanted to keep your videos pretty short and sharp, and now people
tend to want to settle in and watch YouTube more like it's television. So you
get these really long reading vlogs where you get to spend a long time with
the person, but it's also opened up room for really in-depth analysis videos. So
Merphy Napier for example is great at these. She has a whole Harry Potter
series on her channel where she dissects the books, and she uploaded the video
recently that was almost a whole hour long talking about Severus Snape and
whether he is a good or bad character. But new trends pop up all the time. So a
massive one recently was recreating book covers as outfits, which was so cool. So
Sasha Alsberg did this one, Boston reads books did it, Katie
Ruby did it, there were loads of them. And they were so cool and so visually
exciting to watch. But honestly BookTubers are just getting more and more
inventive every day. So some of the coolest things I've seen recently:
Chandler Ainsley uploaded a reading vlog that was a Choose Your Own
Adventure style vlog, so it was up to the viewer to predict which of the two books
she was going to read she would like best. And then you chose which video to
read based on your prediction, which led you down this whole path. If you guess
wrong you reach the end of the road, if you guess right it unlocks a whole new
video for you. That was amazing, I've never seen anything like that before, and Read
by Jess is doing these BookTuber murder mystery live shows, where loads of
BookTubers come together in character, and the viewers can then ask them
questions through the chat, and investigate, and try and guess which one
of them committed a murder. In conclusion, like I said at the beginning, BookTube is
just the best it's ever been. So I'd love to know who are your favourite creators
right now, what's some of the coolest content you've seen? Do leave a
comment and let us know because I'd love to check it out.
And while we're celebrating other amazing BookTubers, we have a whole
playlist here of all the times we've collaborated with other YouTubers so I
will link to that so you can have a browse through. See you next time.