The Lowdown on: The Online Book Community

Once upon a time there was not an internet, nearby bookstore, nor weird judgement for reading. Once it was a rare thing to own a book, and pretty expensive at that. Now of course there are bookstores big and local, and an internet full of communities, one of the strongest and most welcoming being the Book Community. I’m not sure when anymore I joined this community as mush as when I actively began to participate, which was about five or six years ago, and even then it would take several years for me to even consider starting a blog and really stating my opinions. So beyond my years just reading and casually reviewing books, what does this oh so welcoming community look like? I feel like a lot of you already know this, but I feel like this community is ever growing, and it took me a while to find all the little groups that are so well known now.

To begin, the book community spans Instagram (Bookstagram), Goodreads, a lot of blogs, Youtube (Booktube), Facebook (I’m part of Epic Reads group), Publishers own communities (Epic Reads Insiders for ex.), and Twitter. I fell off of twitter, so I won’t be a huge help there and I know there are a lot of communities like Goodreads for book tracking, though I have little experience there. On youtube, there are almost zero dramas, so no beauty guru tea spilling here. I’m hoping to one day meet some of the book tubers, but that may be a 2020 dream more so than 2019. While I feel like some book tubers have definitely gone from being exclusively book recs, there are quite a few, each with their own taste, so maybe you can get some really good recommendations you hadn’t heard of or thought of. Some of my favorites include abookutopia, aclockworkreader, and jessethereader. Each has their own personality, types of books they read, and opinions on the popular reads out there. If you are wanting to hear harsh opinions the unpopular opinions tag they do are a good watch, though be forewarned that one of your favorites could be shot down.

Facebook was one of the groups I joined rather late, and because of that I was behind on Epic Reads Insiders, which I’ll be honest I just fill out polls, and sign up for free books when they occasionally become available. The Facebook Epic Reads group though is one of the most active and easy to join groups I’ve been a part of. If it weren’t for reading challenge, being behind on posting, and work you know I would so be on the group posting and responding to people because the conversations there just can never end. That and the memes are always a good laugh.

Goodreads isn’t really one of my big places to create friendships or a following, I’ve seen people of course who have hundreds of people friending them or following, but at one point it feels like you are faced with a massive feed of people marking anything from entering giveaways to actually finishing and rating a book. For me it feels like it’s more a great tool for tracking what you’ve read, and how many books you’ve read for the year.

I think one of the big things to keep in mind with this community is that we all are readers, and many of us are starting to want to share our thoughts and opinions. So, what does that mean for you? If you just want to hear what others thought of a book it’s actually really good news, it means you’ll have more opinions to base your book purchases on.  For those like me that were trying to start a blog, and get the word out it can feel a little like screaming into a void of people saying ‘oh, hey I have a blog’. It takes work, time, and some extreme patience. If you are wanting to start a blog, or really work your way up in the community, definitely enlist any friends, create work you’re proud of, and just go for it!

So, what are your favorite parts of this community? What was your initiation into our world of crazy? Let me know in the comments below!

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