I mentioned in my first blog post that I was thinking about starting my own YouTube channel. I wanted to become active in the BookTube part of YouTube. I recently started watching videos by people that are considered Booktubers. I really enjoyed watching their content and thought to myself, "I bet I could do that!"
I've been wary about YouTube because there is a lot of hate in the comments and people can just be downright cruel to each other. I didn't know if I really wanted to create a channel and start putting myself out there. But after watching these videos for about a month, I noticed a trend. These Booktubers raved about how loving the BookTube community is and how much they love creating their videos. They talked about how many friends they have made and how much fun they have talking about books and sharing their love of books. That's what really sealed the decision for me. I don't have very many friends that I can talk to about books. Books are a huge part of my life and I want to be able to talk about them with people that actually care about books as much as I do! BookTube is such a loving and accepting community, and I think it will really help me out in being able to talk about books and make friends. Since I would like to be a writer and work in the publishing business, having a blog and a YouTube channel dedicated to talking about books will probably be really helpful, too!
So after making my channel, I needed to figure out what I would do for my first video. I wasn't really sure how to start. But I finally decided on the Taylor Swift Book Tag. This is just a fun little challenge where you choose books off of your shelf that go with a selection of Taylor's songs. So I prepared my little sheet of the prompts and songs.
The next part was the hardest to get through. In order to be on YouTube, you're going to have to film yourself. I'd never done anything like that before and I didn't really know how I felt about it. I was actually really nervous about it all. I didn't really know how to start. I put off filming for another week.
However, this week I was getting more and more excited to share my choices for the tag! It was a really fun idea and I decided that on Friday, I would just do it. I would sit down in front of my laptop and just film it. When it got to the time to start filming, I was really nervous. I was shaky and didn't know if I could really do it. It was like I had stage fright even though I was alone in my room. I got all of the books ready on my bed and took a deep breath and just went for it. If I waited any longer, I would probably psych myself out and the filming would be put off longer.
As I introduced myself, I could tell I was shaky. That's the hardest part, I think. The intro isn't something that I really think about when I watch a video, but it's always there. I thought to myself, "How in the world does an intro work?!" But I couldn't keep doing that, I just had to go for it! And I did.
Before I knew it, I was having fun. A lot of fun. I was sitting all alone in my room, talking to my computer screen about books. It sounds so strange, but I had a lot of fun with it. I had a story to go along with each choice and I wanted to talk about why I chose the books I did. By the end, I felt more myself and felt more confident, even though I still have a long way to go. After I finished I went straight into editing. I really really enjoyed myself and I am so glad that I decided to do this whole BookTube thing. I really had a great time and I can't wait to start filming regularly.
Here's the link to the video. Take a look if you haven't already!
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