Bookstagram: The Reader’s Digital Community

I don’t think I could gush enough about bookstagram.

Instagram, you mean?

No, not just Instagram, bookstagram. It’s a section of Instagram dedicated to books and their readers. It’s a magical place with millions of pictures of book shelves, libraries, books, recommendations, and everything bookish that you can imagine. It really is amazing.

Now, you can find all your new best friends by following bookstagrammers on Instagram with your current account and be amazed like me. But, if you’re an avid enough reader, you can even start a bookstagram of you own.

Why are you always trying to get us to do more?!

Because as a warrior and advocate of mental health, I believe in having hobbies to help cope naturally with our issues. But, moving on from that…

You can start your own bookstagram with an email, some books, and a camera (your phone one totally works). But, I warn you, if you start a bookstagram, keep these things in mind:

Don’t expect to make money from bookstagramming.

Paid advertising on bookstagram is a rarity.  Generally these campaigns are only offered to bookstagrammers with a significant amount of followers or who fulfil a particular niche.

from “Way to Become a Bookstagram Influencer” by The Book Family Rogerson

Personally, I wouldn’t recommend starting anything hobby-related with the intentions of making money. While it is possible to do so, it takes a lot of work and if it ends up a failed venture, it can strip the joy from doing what you love. If you want to go into bookstagramming, do it for the community, for the support, for the friends, for the fun, for the book recommendations, for the bookish world. If you’re good at it, your influence will happen naturally, then, who knows if you get any monetary offers. But when starting out, just make it about what you enjoy. Do it for you and your bookish friends, not the money.

Get ready to do photo editing.

Some bookstagrammers are able to create beautiful pages intuitively, but there are simple ways to improve your Bookstagram feed without spending a fortune on editing apps or resorting to complicated techniques.

from “5 Easy Tips for Improving Your Bookstagram Feed” by The Book Family Rogerson

You’ll notice that a lot of bookstagram images look crazy beautiful and professional, but I can almost guarantee you they were done with a phone camera and some free editing apps! It’s gonna take some time and some learning, but you can totally do the same thing with your pictures, too. It’s easy, actually, when you experiment and see what works best for you.

Instagram can be drama.

Full Disclosure: Instagram is also the bane of my existence.  It’s a love-hate relationship…Bookstagram drama is for real. People argue over reviews, say intolerant things…Quite frankly, IG can be a huge wast of time and make you feel like garbage. It just depends on how you look at it.

from “How to Start a Beautiful Bookstagram for Beginners” by The Uncorked Librarian

Like any other social media, Instagram can have it’s drama and stress. Between the promotions, and algorithm, and the unfriending, and the trolls–yeah, it can be stressful. But, don’t let it get to you. If you enjoy it, keep on. Personally, I don’t worry about those things and just try to post consistently. People are going to play the “friend/unfriend” game all the time, but if you offer quality content, you’ll get new followers. If you’re posting consistently, the algorithm will acknowledge and help you. If you want to pay to promote something awesome, do it! But, it’s not required. And block the trolls (not that there are many that I have found). If you are positive and do positive things for your page, your experience will mostly be positive.

Prepare to spend time on your project.

To show the Instagram algorithm that you’re involved with their app, you need to invest some time in it. This is one of the basic Bookstagram tips, but it works.

from “How to Grow Your Bookstagram Account and Following” by Yuki Reads

That means doing more than posting. You have to engage your followers with likes and comments, you have to use your story and highlights, you have to use captions and hashtags, and you have to get involved. Luckily, there are programs that can help you plan and post much of this, but you also have to get on there yourself and engage with the app. This can take some time. But, considering you’ll be engaging with like-minded individuals about bookish topics, I don’t see why you wouldn’t enjoy it. My recommendation: set some time aside each day to engage and do it. Maybe over lunch, maybe right before and after you post, maybe right before bed. Whatever you choose to do, make sure you do it and you’re consistent or your influence will go nowhere.

Don’t forget to add this to your Literary Bucket List!

But don’t let these realities about the project drive you away.

If you love books, you’ll love running a bookstagram, from what I understand from others. I want to do it so bad, but I don’t read enough to be a true bookstagrammer and recommend anything for others to read.

If you really want to do it, I’m fully behind you and have found some good articles to help you get started:

• Ways to Become a Bookstagram Influencer by The Book Family Rogerson
• 5 Easy Tips for Improving Your Bookstagram Feed by The Book Family Rogerson – this one has excellent basics for photo editing!
• How to Start a Beautiful Bookstagram for Beginnings by The Uncorked Librarian
• How to Grow Your Bookstagram Account and Following by Yuki Reads – this one has some great basic tips.
• Bookstagram 101: Introduction by Word Revel – her whole tutorial is excellent to get you started and going on your account.
• 100+ Bookstagram Hashtags by The Riverside Library
• Instagram Photo Challenge by Barely Bookish
• 22 Bookstagram Post Ideas for Growing Your Account by the Book Family Rogerson
• 200+ Bookstagram Question Of The Day (QOTD) Ideas by Katie Rodante

There are plenty more articles out there to help you do your best and I curate many of them on my Pinterest.

Track all your work and progress in your reader’s journal!

So what do you say? Are you going to jump into the bookish community and start sharing your books, too? If so, let us know on Facebook so we can follow you!

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What do you love about Bookstagram?

Let us know in the comments below and on social media, too!

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