booktubers part 3

[teacupgiraffe]

[tweet][/tweet]
wait so now even the books they buy are free??

if they’re really able to get away with writing off books on their taxes then that’s absolutely fucking ridiculous. not only do they get 90% of their books for free, but they want to be reimbursed for the ones they willingly buy too? give me a fucking break and go get a damn library card like everyone else if books are so expensive for you

What makes me laugh is the majority of these booktubers are anti-Trump and anti-Republican (as I believe people should be), but willing cheat the system, as if it's okay for certain people to do it, but not others.

Wow, you have to be shitting me! I can't put into words how frustrated I am at knowing this!
It's a smart move on her part to write it off on taxes and reap the benefits but the penny pinching part of it pisses me off so much. They take in more than they read with half-assed book advertising in their hauls and TBRs and want to be able to claim it as a necessity for their "job"???

I'm with aaa123. Get a fucking library card because you can do the same exact job you're doing now without wasting money and looking like less of a selfish degenerate. I like to imagine that some authors would enjoy their books being bought but would be disappointed in booktubers like her. I know I would be. It's already enough that they have deals with Book Depository and Book Outlet, but I guess that's not enough. God forbid you'd want to feel honest with your work. /shrug

[JamHands9]

kinda off topic lol but with Emma's new video I don't get why she posts these getting drunk and reacting to things videos? I wonder how her career will go with them since her name's connected to her channel or if she'll just end up privating all of them

I can’t imagine her as a therapist TBH.
She’s has a very strong persona and can rub a lot of people the wrong way.
Plus I feel like some of her personal stuff isn’t very professional at all. (Look at her Insta which features many pictures of her underage drinking back to 15/16). The drunk YouTube videos go along with that which is fun and all, but I wouldn’t pick that person as my counselor.

[Guest]

On the topic of Emma and the social media body posts, I see this as two sides. One, Emma has a right to post whatever body pictures or pictures in general without comments on her body. However, when you post to social media, people when comment. That's just what media is. Emma can post whatever she wants, but if she knows she is going to be getting the same comments, she always has the option to turn them off but still post.

On Hailey's 'Read this, if you like this', all the books she recommended are like carbon copies of the other one. Like if you liked Six of Crows, she recommended Ace of Shades or ACOTAR she recommends an Enchantment of Ravens. So very crappy books imo lol.

I wish some of them go to libraries and support them. Especially since some of them live near cities (and I'm assuming) have a good assortment of books. There are so many deals to get books cheap! From Amazon to Ebay to Book Outlet and even stores like Target and Barnes & Noble that have sales like every single day and even fun book and author events!

[goblin]

Im confused about the tax thing. Isn't that just a normal business practice? Seems like just good financial advice for new creators. Better than the tired be yourself advice. I write off everything I buy that's for my work. I also paint on the side, and because Im able to sell pieces I write off supplies. Seems the same, no? Maybe because I work in accounting, but its just a normal thing to me. Also I doubt authors would mind considering that was a retweet of an author giving the same advice.

[teacupgiraffe]

Im confused about the tax thing. Isn't that just a normal business practice? Seems like just good financial advice for new creators. Better than the tired be yourself advice. I write off everything I buy that's for my work. I also paint on the side, and because Im able to sell pieces I write off supplies. Seems the same, no? Maybe because I work in accounting, but its just a normal thing to me. Also I doubt authors would mind considering that was a retweet of an author giving the same advice.

Those are fair points you make, but that author was sharing with other authors in mind, I believe. Emma was applying it to booktube as well.

My biggest frustration is that I have a hard time seeing booktubers as a serious business. The ones with larger ad revenue and more sponsors are the ones we gripe about on here for being so cookie cutter. So to see one of them giving advice on penny pinching books for their hoard is just annoying. And could they write off subscription boxes too if they haven't been made a partner yet? Just makes me wonder what more garbage I can expect them to buy for the sake of writing it off lol.

I definitely won't deny that it's smart business practice lol, especially when you find something like that. But I still have the ability to not support them so I won't stay frustrated for long haha.


Also to give my quick two cents on Emma and her social media, it is a tough matter. I think a person's body should be able to stay out of comments but with a following as large as hers that is a lot of censorship to manage. Either disable comments when you can, post and deal with it as best as you can, or don't post at all. It sucks but it's also your choice to post things on the internet where anyone can find you. Never an excuse for jerks but you can't reasonably change the mentality of commenters through a couple of tweets.

[getinmymachine]

There are so many deals to get books cheap! From Amazon to Ebay to Book Outlet and even stores like Target and Barnes & Noble that have sales like every single day and even fun book and author events!

In my experience, cheap books just means they're going to buy even more. In Germany there are a few really popular websites where you can buy second hand books for usually under €5. It has become normal for German booktubers to do gigantic book hauls, unboxing like 50 books because they barely cost anything, who cares if they never want to read them. Now those companies got savvy and use booktubers to promote themselves, so it's pushed even more.

I always bought used books, but I would just order them occasionally from Amazon Marketplace before. After I found out about these kind of retailers my book buying completely exploded and I bought like 100 books in a year. I don't feel too bad about it because I paid peanuts and I never bought crap, but that's still way too many books that I realistically won't get to for a while. So I don't think buying cheap used books is going to dial down the consumerism, if anything it gets worse because the cheaper the books are the more accessible it is for more people to buy many books. Which is a good thing of course! Books should be accessible! But the whole "buying just because" mentality that Youtubers show us is not.

[Guest]

^ That is absolutely true! ^

I remember before I started watching Booktube, I only brought books once in a while but mainly books were gifts from family and friends. But then I started watching more and then all these sites with deals came up and I think I brought like sixty books in that month. I'm slowly trying to implement a one in, one out policy. But I definitely agree, it's good to have accessible things, but consumerism is definitely an issue.

[Slackerbitch]

I don't shame them for buying books but some of the reasons they buy them are beyond my understanding; "it has a beautify cover", "it was cheap so I bought books 3-5 but haven't read the first ones", "I don't have it in hardback", stuff like that.

[NicoleThePickle]

I love Lala from booksandlala some times but I absolutely hate her small selection of genres. I'm fine with people liking certain genres but I can't stand when they refuse to branch out or make a huge deal when they do. I'll also never get her need to buy every book she's read, even if she absolutely hated it.

[Slackerbitch]

I still can't get over how stupid the book tube a thon challenges are stupid.

[Bananana2]

The New York Times did a piece on BookTube

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/31/book ... utube.html

[pictou222]

The New York Times did a piece on BookTube

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/31/book ... utube.html

Barry Pierce had some amusing commentary on that article on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BarryPierce/status/ ... 6347157505

I wish he'd come back to YouTube and deliver us from the evil!

[NicoleThePickle]

Do you guys think YA is really as bad as people like Barry and the other person that commented on that thread do? What are your thoughts on the YA that is popular on booktube vs non booktube popular YA?

[eri]

Delurking because I have some Opinions about this lol.

YA really isn't as bad as Barry is making it out to be? He kinda comes across as a book snob to me. I hadn't heard of him before so I went and watched his most viewed video where he reviews Anna and the French Kiss (which yeah, that book really is horrible lol). But in that video he says something like 'what is the literary purpose of this' and I just think that not every book has to be super Important and have really deep meanings, y'know? The purpose of books is to entertain? That's why most people read?

Not to mention YA isn't the only genre that has some terrible terrible books within it....

[pictou222]

That's a great question!

I agree with the poster above. I don't think YA is really that bad, I've read a few YA books before, I'm a little older than the target audience for YA so keep that in mind. I would never shame someone for reading or liking YA, or any genre of book for that matter. I like Barry for the same reason I like InsaneReader - they're willing to call out books they didn't like, which I think a lot of other Booktubers are afraid to do.

I might not always agree with their opinions on books, but I appreciate that they're honest.

[mik_mik]

I always find myself flip-flopping between "defending people for reading tons of YA" and "lowkey judging people for reading tons of YA"
I personally try to read a little bit of everything and I have definitely found some YA gems over the years [In fact one of my favourite books I've read this year was "Asking For It". I personally found it well written, thought-provoking - I read it twice in one week - HUGE tw for rape, however]

It does kind of annoy me when people completely shit on YA and quite frankly I find it pretentious? self-important? to call them all stunted adults just because you read books that differ from theirs. I don't know this guy but from those few tweets, I gather he's one of ~those people~ who say that if you didn't LOOVVE Lolita it's just because you're an idiot. Also how many YA and Children's books are now considered classics? (I know those aren't the books he's referring to in his tweet, I'm just an ass )

I agree with one of the above posts. I don't think everything needs to be a complete life-changing masterpiece, it's okay to enjoy something that isn't overly ~deep~ and ~high art~

I do get frustrated with the overly positive reviews allll of the time and I agree that I am more drawn to booktubers who are honest and not afraid to admit that they think a book is flat out stupid and not worth reading. But I understand positivity from a business perspective - I'm going to take a wild guess and assume that more companies/authors/whoever will want to sponsor and work with people who don't swear too much and have nothing but good things to say

[Bananana2]

Same as posters above. YA is fine, some of it’s excellent, some of it’s not. Same with anything.

PYA is so varied anyway, it’s contemporary, sci-fi, horror,thriller etc... I read quite a bit of it but not exclusively.

Read what you want,

[Sparksdragon]

if they’re really able to get away with writing off books on their taxes then that’s absolutely fucking ridiculous. not only do they get 90% of their books for free, but they want to be reimbursed for the ones they willingly buy too? give me a fucking break and go get a damn library card like everyone else if books are so expensive for you

Being a book tuber has to be the cheapest youtuber you can be(except maybe being a commentator, a lazy one actually) Like you arent buying clothes and makeup hauls, you arent spending hundreds on food for one video, you aren't traveling, you aren't doing $1 book vs $1,000 book videos, like I don't get it. SMH

[JamHands9]

Agreed with what everyone here says.
As a 30-something, I do enjoy some YA. Kacie West got be through the beginning of my husband’s cancer diagnosis last year. Would I have enjoyed them as much now? I don’t know. But they were easy, entertaining reads that saved my sanity.

Now, I definitely don’t read only YA either. There’s some immaturity in YA simply because the characters are young, and I can’t handle that much.

[Harrietthespy]

I agree with basically everything everyone has said. There is some awesome YA and some bad like any other genre. About half of what I read is YA and I am 27. I am also a teacher so I find it interesting to read from a perspective similar to my students.

My problem isn’t with reading YA. If they they only read YA that just limiting their content which bothers me. Also, my other problem is when their reviews are so superficial. A lot of youtubers are like “OMG I just loved it so much. I can’t even say why.” I get that you can just love a book without some in depth literary analysis but if you’re a booktuber it’s your job to explain and provide some commentary. I think a lot of booktubers stopped doing individual reviews because they can’t intelligently explain their opinions. They just say they loved it and move on. If they didn’t like a book they sugar coat their reviews so much! That is my biggest problem. You can tell when someone didn’t like something and is lying. Booktubers won’t rate a book lower than 3 Stars.