Booktuber Uliana Petrukhina: “Think about content and believe in what you are doing. Rely on your own interest

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The booktuber movement is growing all over the world. More than 200 bloggers now talk about their book purchases, share their impressions and inspire subscribers to read in the Russian booktube space. What questions are of interest to the audience? How to find your "book" niche? How can you tell about a book without ruining its intrigue? Popular Russian booktubers shared their secrets.

Olga Miklashevskaya,
booktuber, Moscow

Tamara Khakimova,
librarian, booktuber, Republic of Mari El

Ulyana Petrukhina,
booktuber, St. Petersburg

Ulyana Petrukhina, video channel Ulielie

39 thousand subscribers
Date of creation of the channel - September 2009, the first "book" videos - February 2013.

Have a live conversation

At first, I had to write down everything I wanted to say about the book in advance. Everything was clearly according to the script: I came up with the text, verified each sentence and read it, trying not to deviate from what was written. Of course, the fear of the camera, familiar to many, was the reason. You sit down in front of her and your head is empty. Now it’s the other way around: the camera makes me talk more. AT real life I am a rather silent person, but now, as soon as I sit in front of the camera, I cannot be stopped. It didn't come right away, about half a year after I started making my first videos about books. Now I think over the video before shooting, but I don’t record anything anymore - I share the thoughts that come to mind. However, this is not universal advice. I like to speak spontaneously, speech becomes more lively. For other people, it may be more convenient to structure their speech, write abstracts and a script in advance.

Talk without spoilers

More "home"

During the three years of running the channel, I realized that it is very important to do your job with high quality, but not to cross the line when quality starts to look like professionalism. People feel it, and many begin to reject it. If they see that you are doing a show from your channel, it repels them, and they are outraged in the comments: “You have become so insincere!” There is a book channel, run by a professional TV presenter, who talks about books in an interesting way, but viewers often write that they would like less professionally delivered speech and thoughtful sentences, more “domestic”: for some mysterious reason people really like it. Yes, they want it to be interesting and beautiful, but not too professional, it is important to capture this line.

Search for segments that no one talks about

The most represented segment on buktube is literature for teenagers. Youtube as a whole is quite a young community, the 13-24 age group are the most active subscribers and bloggers. On my channel there are a lot of reviews of teenage and detective literature, books on self-development. Many disparagingly refer to teenage literature, considering it to be something that is not worth attention. In fact, teenagers need to choose what is really worth reading in all of today's variety. I have three younger sisters, so I'm interested in picking books that they would like to read.

For those who want to quickly develop their book channel, it might be worth paying attention to those genres and topics that no one talks about yet: for example, science fiction in its traditional sense, alternative genres. By search queries, viewers will find what they are interested in. There are few comics and graphic novels on booktube, most likely because we have a certain prejudice towards this kind of literature, and not many people have an interest in it. And so, about everything that can be found in the "Front Page", on the calculations in "Bukvoeds", there are bloggers who will tell.

Read what is interesting

The vast majority of books that appear on the channel, I read for myself. Art books, books on self-development and self-discovery - since the university is finished and in this moment it is important for me to read something inspiring; All these are books that ask me for themselves. It happens that I am interested in making a literary selection dedicated to a particular event or holiday. For example, for the last two years before Halloween, I have been making collections of books and films that make the blood run cold. There is a section "Reading and Watching" about book adaptations. Every year I make a list of screen adaptations that come out and choose what interests me, films that interest me so much that I decided to turn to the literary source.

Remove your top 5

If you shoot the very first video about a particular book, then you can’t really tell either about your literary preferences or about yourself. You need something that shows who you are. For example, make a video “5 most favorite books” so that the viewers understand in which direction your channel is moving and who you are as a reader. These are some of the most viewed videos - many will immediately stumble upon the channel by search queries. Tagged videos are also very interesting - they provide an opportunity to tell about yourself.

Is it worth developing a specialized channel dedicated to a particular literary movement? I think at some point, no matter how much you love this topic, you will want to read something else - it is difficult to read the same thing for months and years. Then the project can stop, because on Youtube nothing is as important as personal involvement. But here a lot depends on the presentation: I think you can create a channel about some detectives if you can effectively beat the theme of detectives.

Promote videos on social media

I have always been very active on the Internet. I created my first text blog when I was 12 years old. As soon as new social network appears - I'm there, I want to explore it. Therefore, when I started running my video channel, it immediately became clear to me that if I want to develop in this direction, then it makes no sense to hide it. At that moment, I already had accounts on Instagram and Twitter, where I certainly announced my new videos. Later I created a VKontakte group, in which I gathered part of my audience and also posted videos, but I don’t purposefully promote the channel.

Show library "behind the scenes"

If the library sphere is integrated with Youtube, then libraries need to become more open. I have always been interested in "behind the scenes", including publishing houses and libraries; interesting to know what is on the other side. If they created a channel that told about libraries something that, just by going to the library, you would not guess and see, I would watch it without stopping. We need to find a way to talk about the library in a way that no one has heard of it. To make people feel that this is a place where they can come for peace, read in an armchair in a cozy atmosphere, disconnect from extraneous thoughts.

I would like a sense of dialogue and friendliness with those people who represent libraries on buktube; equality between those who come to the library and those who work in it. For example, librarians from different parts of the city could talk about books that have impressed them. I'm sure they would talk so enthusiastically about the literature they read that it would be interesting to everyone. On Youtube, the personal component is very important. If a person was able to keep my attention for at least a minute and a half, I will always watch his video.

Olga Miklashevskaya, video channel " Olya Monday »

25 thousand subscribers
The channel was created in October 2011.

Make a video about yourself

Top tip: If you want to make videos, make them silently. Now a new trend has emerged on booktube: book channels have appeared that position themselves as informational. Nothing about yourself, you may not even know the name of the person in the frame - only a literary analysis of books. Of course, everything has the right to exist, but I don’t watch such videos myself, and many don’t watch them, precisely because they are not personal. Youtube is about a person, about a personality; if the approach becomes overly formalized, the “zest” disappears. If a person speaks not as a person, but as an information intermediary, this is not interesting. You should also not write texts and memorize them - this is unnatural and therefore repulsive. If viewers want staged shooting, they will turn on the TV, Youtube is not for that.

Record collaborative video

The best option is at the beginning of the journey, if a bigger blogger tells about your channel, this will provide an excellent opportunity to develop. I myself always try to help those booktubers whom I know personally. Being featured by a popular blogger - The best way join the general crowd. Otherwise, it will simply be difficult to find you, even if you shoot wonderful videos. Try to shoot more joint videos as well, especially if you live in the same city as a famous blogger. It is worth contacting the one with whom you communicate, perhaps you often left comments on his site, and he remembered you.

Tamara Khakimova, video channel Mara Book ("Shelter of Thought")

3 thousand subscribers
The channel was created on March 2013.

Re-read the book before creating the video

Topics for reviews are often suggested by my subscribers, and, of course, I also come up with something myself. Every month my “Favorites...” appear on the channel in the following categories: book, film, painting, music, TV project, life story, discovery of a new blogger. I think this section on the channel will be permanent! Sometimes I come up with tags: for example, a “delicious” tag that played on literary and culinary associations, and some booktubers also answered “delicious” questions about books.

I never write scripts. Not my case. It’s easier for me to speak live, to think in front of the camera, some revelations happen at this very moment, although, when I watch videos, I am often dissatisfied with myself.

Rely on your own interest

How to find your niche in the book space complex issue I myself am still continuing this search. I think the main thing is to be yourself, not to try to imitate someone: build on yourself and rely on your own interest. Naturally, young people rule the show in booktube, the interests of the older generation are not yet given enough attention, since there are very few "age" booktubers. My audience is people who are looking for themselves, smart, intelligent. For example, recently, under a video dedicated to the Kreutzer Sonata, one of my subscribers left the following comment: “I am very glad that I found your blog in booktube. I searched for a long time, looked closely at many, but never found an author who would not only be similar to me in tastes, but also make me move on, stretch higher ... Every evening now I watch your videos. Amazing blog and amazing you!” Although it is immodest to cite this review as an example, it really inspired and motivated me.

Inspire to read

Yes, I am a professional librarian, but on booktube I feel like a reader first and foremost. What I do should be interesting, first of all, to myself, but I'm interested! It is a mystery to me why there are so few librarians on buktube, because this is the real propaganda of the book. Many readers of our library watch Shelter of Thought and read on my recommendation. Sometimes I find out about it quite by accident: after all, they read at home, in electronic format. What should libraries bet on? I think family reading needs to be revived. “We read with the children!”, “We read for half an hour before going to bed”, etc. By the way, a great idea for my channel.

Why did you decide to start a second channel “Fly away with Ulilay”? How to combine two channels and manage to prepare content?

Ulyana Petrukhina: — The first and, perhaps, one of the most important criteria for assessing the existence of a channel for me is the reaction of the audience. After releasing several travel videos on the main channel, I realized that not all of my subscribers accept and love this format. My blogs usually have the minimum amount of creativity that many expect from videos like this.

That is why I decided to do well for myself and the audience - I singled out vlogs in a separate channel. Those people who were interested in this format switched to it.

When developing content, I give the main priority to the main, book channel, so there are no special problems with “doing everything”, but I will try to upload videos on “Fly away” at least once a week.

How do you think booktubers are really changing the book market?

U.P.: — I think that innovations in any market bring something unusual and interesting, and in some way modify or complement the existing vectors of movement of publishers and other similar companies. Undoubtedly, the active development of book tubing has already begun to influence the development of the Russian book industry.

Tell me straight on the points how to promote your brand? What needs to be done for this?

U.P.: — Believe in yourself; believe in what you are doing and be consistent! I don't and never have specific points that I would follow in an attempt to promote my personal brand. I do what I'm interested in, have a dialogue with my audience and try to combine my interests with what they would like to see. When it does, I can't help but rejoice!

Do you think non-fiction is winning back the shelf from fiction? What do you expect in development? modern literature?

U.P.: — I don't think non-fiction is taking over from fiction. At least I don't have data to back it up. But I would definitely be interested in seeing the emergence of some intermediate format.

In the development of modern literature, I expect even more immersion in the digital world and even more mention of new media. At some point, this trend will certainly reach its peak, and then everyone will again want to return to the forests / fields / lakes and rest from the digital.

What are the main forms of cooperation between booktubers and publishers? Did you yourself go to Russian publishing houses, or were you noticed as soon as the channel began to gain popularity?

U.P.: — The first, and at the moment the only publishing house, to which I wrote myself, was Eksmo. The audience on the channel had just crossed the 10,000 mark, and I decided that I could try to write - then I really wanted to give subscribers a few books, and, as part of a kind of book club, involve them in the channel. It turned out great, I think. All other publishers contacted me themselves.

The main form of cooperation between booktubers and publishers at the moment is barter. The publisher provides the book, the blogger reviews it. I hope that someday our book industry will follow the example of Western colleagues and begin to cooperate with bloggers in a form that is more beneficial for both parties.

Name 5 books that every blogger should read in order to better understand how to develop in blogging.

U.P.: — I'm not a big fan of the "read this - learn all the truth - succeed" format of existence. In my opinion, it doesn't work that way. Do what you love, develop in your field, and everything will be great!

Every blogger, it seems to me, should first of all think about their content. So books for writers, books on creative thinking and other similar objects might help.

How do you see yourself in the future? Would you like to become a writer? Or, for example, open a bookstore?

U.P.: — I see myself continuing to develop and work 24/7. Yes, sometimes it's tiring, but it's worth it!

Become a writer or open a bookstore... Good question, but I still can’t give an adequate answer to it, because for more than three years of blogging, I have once again become convinced that “never say never” is not empty words at all.

In general, how can a booktuber develop? What monetization opportunities does it have?

U.P .: - This is a question in the spirit of “what will you be after graduation / add the name of the faculty / university /”. A booktuber, like any other blogger, can develop in any direction he wants. The same goes for monetization opportunities. Become a good specialist in your field, and opportunities will come to you.

Every week I ask interesting people about their relationship with books. Today's guest - Ulyana Petrukhina, known as Ulilay. Ulyana leads vlog, in which he talks about books he has read, travels, and also shares his life impressions.

I contacted Ulyana and found out what literature inspires her, how best to store quotes and what books helped to analyze life and learn to relate to it easier.

What are you reading?

Relatively recently, I got acquainted with the absolutely incredible “Between Need and Want” and now I continue to dive into motivating lyrics from “SUMO” by Paul McGee.

How and when do you read books?

I can read anytime and anywhere, and in a year of living in a Vietnamese hostel I even learned to read to music. Recently, most interesting things are read in the early morning hours on the SU37 flight to Moscow and in the metro.

What life hacks do you use to work with what you read?

This year, I began to actively break up what I read into quotes, which, in turn, are divided into topics and stored in notebooks in Evernote. So at any moment you can find something inspiring.

Do you prefer e-books or paper books?

In literature, I always appreciate the choice, so when traveling, I would rather prefer electronic options. At home, I try to read paper books. Both hands and eyes are much more pleasant.

What books did you like as a child?

As a child, I really loved The Wizard of Oz, Scooby-Doo comics and biographies of politicians. I still often pick up the autobiography of Benazir Bhutto.

Tell us about books that changed your life and influenced you.

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer once again proved that everything in our world is cyclical after all, and people have been worrying for centuries about the same problems. “Positive Irrationality” by Dan Ariely, like his other books, helped me analyze my life and begin to treat it a little easier, and, it would seem, quite teenage “Hunger Games” by Susan Collins completely convinced me that even with literature it is necessary get out of your comfort zone more often. The same book gave my collection the wonderful words that "Overestimating the enemy is sometimes no less dangerous than underestimating."

Is there a story or interesting fact about the books and the knowledge gained from them?

Arturo Perez-Reverte and his books once helped me pass university courses in museology and cultural studies.

Do you have a favorite aphorism?

There is! And almost every day a new one becomes a favorite.