Bookstagram for beginners!

Bookstagram – How, What, Why, When, Whatever…

It’s been 2 years since I started my Bookstagram @theguywiththebook which recently crossed 35k. I had no idea there is a thing called Bookstagram and it was just a space for me to keep track of the books I’ve read.

Recently I won the Bookstagrammer of the year award at the London Book Fair and so I decided this would be a great time to share what I’ve learnt over the past couple of years and hopefully this will help you start or better your account!

Well, that’s enough about me, let’s start!

Quick Introduction to Bookstagram.

It’s an online space on Instagram where people post pictures and videos of books and talk all things bookish.

How to setup your Bookstagram Profile:

Instagram Handle

First thing you need to decide on is an Instagram handle which reflects your bookish side. When I started Bookstagram my handle was @thebookpiper (Yes, I know :l) and I kept it because I used to prop my pictures with a book and a pipe I had picked up on a trip to Zambia (Stupid, I know). Later I changed it to @theguywiththebook. When I reached around 500 followers I realized that

A- My handle makes no sense and

B- Not many male book bloggers were around (So I thought it would be smart to let people know) and it helped. So, think about it and chose your Instagram handle smartly.

Profile picture

The next (or maybe even the first) thing that people will notice is your profile picture. Either create a logo for free (I made mine in 5 minutes on the app Canva – you can find it here: Canva) or use a regular picture of yourself or maybe a bookish photo. Whatever makes you happy. Just remember your profile picture is going to be a tiny little circle and sometimes pictures look like a mess in such a small frame.

Instagram Bio

Your bio is the next thing you need to add and what I like is to try and keep it simple (I’ve had messy bio’s before because I didn’t think about it much) but now it’s a clean little bio reflecting the fun side of me, followed by my current read which includes numbers showing how any books I’ve read and the number I want read by the end of the year. Next is ‘Saudi Arabia’ which is where I live. For me this clean and clear bio works but you can experiment with what you like. Just make sure it’s something which reflects your theme of books. Oh, you can add ‘Bookstagram’ to your name as well.

Starting!

You’ll want your page to look active right away so it’s a good idea to fill up your page with maybe a dozen posts so it looks active. Not many would be interested in a page with 3-6 posts. Next you’ll want people to know about your page and you’ll need to start interacting to attract traffic. This is going to take some time and you’ll have to work on it persistently. I will talk about interactions in a bit.

Content Creation

Irrespective of the type of books you read, Visual content creation is where you need to concentrate the most. Instagram is a visual platform and the most effective way to drive people to your page and make them want to press that blue button is to have visually appealing timeline. Captions come second and will form an important but not equally important part of your post for majority of people. The reason I say this is that on average for me the number of comments are about 50-100 and the number of likes go somewhere between 3k to 6k. Not everyone will be in the mood to have a chat on Instagram PLUS you are not the only one they are following. The average number of accounts 1 user follows on Instagram is 800.

Taking pictures

The main thing you need is a camera, not necessarily a DSLR. Your phone camera will work just fine. You could start your page with a single setup style and take multiple pictures with different books and setups and slowly graduate to different styles. Or you could start and learn on the way to find out what style(s) work best for you. It’s all hit and miss and depends on what you are good at over a period of time. I, personally enjoy taking pictures at the beach or at cafes but sometimes I’m in the mood for a flat lay. I don’t follow a single setup theme because my mind is just very random and I’ve tried but I can’t follow a single theme. I’m slowly trying to learn how to have a color theme my page if not a single style theme. These days I’m regularly using a bookish scarf as a background as I don’t have enough time right now and it actually looks really good!

Photography tips

1- All cameras will give their best shot in natural lighting. If you are taking pictures at home, take pictures as close to the window as possible.

2- Check online when the ‘Golden Hour’ is in your city. This is the time the sunlight is perfectly angled to give a soft lighting environment. If you can, then try to schedule your shoot during this time.

3- Focus on different parts of the image to see which point is giving you the best lit picture.

4- Take multiple pictures from different angles. You’ll be surprised to see how different the same setup looks from different angles. I’ve posted pictures of the same setup from different angles and each of them has a personality of its own.

5- If you need to take pictures at night (I almost never have), do not use direct lighting, use a thin cloth or shower curtain to soften and spread the light.

Engagement

First thing you might learn on IG is that every day is a new experience. One picture will get a 1000 likes and the next maybe 200. There is no guarantee. So what you need to do is try to control the things you can control. The one thing you can kind of control is to direct traffic to your account.

What I have done over the past is followed a bunch of people on whose posts I like and comment almost every single day. I do this every time I post a picture on my page. I follow around 30 people who post every single day. When they see that I comment almost daily, they naturally return the favor on my posts. Please note I try to be thoughtful in my comments and try to relate it to the caption or picture. Unless I’m really tired or out of ideas I might comment something generic like complimenting the picture posted.

These are connection I have grown and maintained over the past and were only built since I was regular on their pages and got noticed. There are some accounts which are way bigger than mine but they appear regularly on my page as well because I am regular on theirs. So try to give, to get.

United Bookstagram

Many of you might already know, I created a hashtag along with my sister @sumaiyya.books : #unitedbookstagram. This is to support smaller account who have just started on bookstagram. We try to like/comment on posts on the hashtag every single day. Use it, and be active on it. You’ll find some really great accounts who want to engage and grow with you.

I really hope this helps you if you are starting out. I honestly don’t know if any of this information is new to anyone, since these are almost basic tools/tips that I use daily which makes it seem like general knowledge!

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Happy Reading!

Faroukh

@theguywiththebook