Book Tubing Vs. Book Blogging: A Guest Post

Hey, everyone! Sorry that Alison and I have not been posting so often. Fortunately, Grace @ Loving My Lit was kind enough to step up and write a guest post for us! Please leave some thoughts for her in the comments, and take the time to visit her blog!

Grace's Post:

I have recently fallen in love with booktube and book vloggers.

"What is this 'booktube'?" you may ask yourself.

Well, booktube is a community on Youtube which has exploded over the past few years. It is where awesome human beings set up some sort of filming device and record themselves gushing over books they love. The fast growing community is a safe and loving environment where lovers of books all congregate and share their passion.

And no, I did not just write that. It's a section from a more detailed article that you can find here, if you're interested.

This is Christine. She's so pretty!

I think it's really fun and engaging to watch someone rant about a book that you may or may not have read, and then talk about it with them in the comments. One of my favorite booktubers ever is Christine from PolandBananasBOOKS (and no, she is not Polish). She is energetic and funny, and she has this long blonde hair that I am so jealous of! Her book talks are very engaging and there's a lot of general excitement (and screaming). Which I can totally connect with, being a fellow fangirl myself. :).

Fun fact about me & booktube: it was a big part of my life even before I started book blogging. It's actually what lead me to start my blog. Because as much as I'd love to buy a camera and sit in front of my bookshelves and babble, I just don't think I would find it fun (after a while), and it's really not my 'thing'. I love to watch it, though! That will never change.

So blogging was my outlet. I think everybody has a certain way of dealing with all those feelings and opinions after reading a book. Some people rant to their friends, some people rant to the internet. I'm one of the latter.

And today, I'd like to discuss with you why I chose book blogging over book tubing. But not only that! I'd also like to look at the pros and cons of both, and their different uses and needs.

So join me, for today is about dreams. (That's a quote from Tina Fey's memoir Bossypants, which is amazing!)

Money

Now, we all know that money is involved here. For bloggers, it's generally cheaper. If you blog for free on Wordpress or Blogger, then you probably don't pay anything. If you have your own site, it's about $5-10 a month to host. So you spend about $120 on it a year.

But for booktubers, it's a whole other story. You have to buy a nice camera (if you want anyone to watch your videos), and this camera could be up there in the thousands. You probably need to buy editing software, unless you use whatever came with your computer. Software can be really expensive! And I haven't even begun with the studio lighting, tripod... there's a lot of equipment involved.

Time

Time is very important, and the amount of effort you put into something can really make a difference. The blogging community has to put a great deal of time into their schedules, formatting, writing, and theme. The layout of your blog can take days to customize perfectly, and even writing simple reviews takes a lot of thought and time. It also takes a while in general terms for your blog to build up a follower count and really start getting noticed.

I believe, however, that booktubers have to spend far more time on just one single video. They don't have an entire website to create, but each video must be set up, filmed, processed, edited, and uploaded. Not to mention vlogging (if they do have a personal vlog), we're just talking about nitty-gritty reviews here. It takes a good seven hours to edit a good video, and uploading it to YouTube can be seemingly endless.

Space

You need to consider space when you begin blogging or vlogging. Space for shelves, space for computers, space for setup, space for equipment. Again, I think bloggers have a far easier time with this, because let's be honest: we all blog in bed, with blankets over our heads, at 2 am in the morning... or at least, I do. :P Hardly anyone sees your bookshelves, so that's not a problem (unless your a perfectionist like me). In the end, it's much easier and takes less space.

If you decide to vlog, then you are going to need a ton of space to store your equipment, and also to set up and actually film videos! Your bookshelves also will probably need to look nice, and that means space for big bookshelves that can actually hold stuff. No more piles, guys. You will need the real effing deal with shelving.

Sponsors

Now, I'm fairly new at this whole blogging business, so I haven't had any major sponsors yet, but I still feel qualified to speak about this because I use le internetz. 

Booktubers tend to get more sponsors. That's a definite problem. Publishers like Random House and Harlequinn Teen figure that, "Oh, my book is going to be shown on camera, and there will be lots of talking about them! Let's sponsor these booktubers!"

I don't think it's the same for book bloggers. Companies just don't value the written word as much as the spoken word (is that even a phrase?), and it hurts the blogging community. But then again, bloggers do get more ARCs and self-published books, so it's a win-win.

Why I Chose Blogging

I'm kind of a lazy person. I'm also just a teenager, so I can't exactly buy my own camera and software. I don't have a professional laptop, I just use my iPad and a bluetooth-connected keyboard. I honestly don't have the time to film and edit huge videos. And I would be really nervous about hate comments and trolls.

As you can see, with the pro-con(ish) list above, blogging is ultimately far easier than vlogging. BUT THAT DOES NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, MEAN THAT BLOGGING IS WORSE THAN VLOGGING. Bloggers put so much thought and effort into writing and editing posts, and graphics are harder than you'd think to come up with! Even though I chose the easier way to rant, it still takes up a lot of my time and energy. So, I can't be as lazy as I imagined I could be. *sobs and eats cake*

In the end, blogging was just a better choice for me and it was also my preference. I love making friends through blogging and Twitter, and it's been really fun for me so far. Of course, I support both bloggers and vloggers (like I said before, I watch tons of vloggers on YouTube and enjoy chatting with them). :) So, thanks for listening to my rant!

It's Time for YOUR Thoughts!

What do you think about my reasons? Are you a vlogger or blogger? Leave any links in the comments and I'll check them out! :)