Hello everyone! Welcome back to BirthMay 2022! Today’s post is all about my new bookstagram account under StarringPamelaReads!

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In case you’re new, every May I blog every day and call it BirthMay! Why? Because it’s my birth month and I’m super extra.

So, I have recently made more bookish friends (IRL) and while chatting with a friend I joked I should start a bookstagram. And then it quickly became a real thing and not a joke anymore! Now, I did start the account pretty suddenly, so there was minimal planning. But, I think that it’s going pretty well overall! Here’s a bit about how it’s going!

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Starting a Bookstagram – StarringPamelaReads

So, as you may know if you regularly visit my blog, I do read quite a bit. I am hesitant to say I read a lot because everyone has a different idea of what a lot is, but compared to most people I mean, I do read a ton. As of writing this post on May 21st, I have read 58 books this year. My reading goal for 2022 is 65, so I think it’s time to reevaluate that!

Anyway, since I love to read and I love to share my thoughts about what I read, I figured I should totally do a bookstagram! The first step, finding a username! Originally I wanted something book inspired for the account, but still tied to my OG name of StarringPamela. Unfortunately, I’m quite basic so none of my ideas were available without adding random dashes or underscores or numbers. I tried endless combos of books/stars/coffee/lattes/etc. EVERYTHING was taken! And honestly, I can’t even be mad about it because clearly those people have excellent taste in usernames. So in the end I decided not to mess with a good thing and just add on “reads” to my usual username. It was available! Woohoo! And so, StarringPamelaReads was born.

I already had a ton of accounts to use as inspo too. Some were recommended by friends, others I found on my own, some are actually people I’ve followed due to my blog! I have been loving seeing posts of books I’ve already read and seeing other thoughts on those books, and even discovered a few more I want to read. I am really enjoying it having a whole account just for books.

As for what I’m posting, I’ve decided to focus on catching up with the books that I’ve read first. Which, considering there’s 58 books to catch up on (well, technically 57 but one of them counted twice because I read half via a physical copy and half via audiobook), is starting to get a bit, well, boring… Right now, all my photos look pretty much the same because I did one “meet the bookstagramer” post and the rest are the same background with the photo of the book cover I find on the publisher’s site. I plan to tackle this by trying to find more of the books at the library on the shelves and take photos when I’m there.

That is one of the downsides of not buying books and getting them from the library. I don’t have the books to take pictures with! But at the end of the day it’s not a huge deal and I’d rather keep doing what I’m doing than buy 50+ books just to take pictures of them. I am going to try to sprinkle non-book photos that are still book inspired though. Maybe I can remember to take more photos of library events I go to or find other ways to make it more fun. Plus, now that I know I need photos, I can try harder to take photos before giving the books back to the library!

I am also experimenting with stories. I already started a “monthly reads” highlight so that when I get through the books from a month I can post them. (I already posted the January 2022 wrap up, still working towards February’s.) I also plan to share a “book club” highlight so I can put photos of the books I read as part of a book club. Another idea I have is a “Foxy’s Picks”. Fox is my dog, and I have read some dog training or dog focused books before, so my plan is to put them into that highlight. Other ideas is “books on the go” for when I travel and a stats wrap up at the end of the year.

I will say that overall it’s been pretty simple because I’ve been able to repurpose and update my previous mini book reviews from my blog. On the blog I can get more wordy, but insta gets me to shorten my already “mini” reviews and so it’s a different challenge. Plus, some of these books I’ve read awhile ago so I can revisit and update what I wrote if my thoughts on a book has changed. Also, it’s fun to see which books perform better!

At the time of writing this I’ve posted 9 books that I’ve read. The highest viewed was Declutter Like A Mother by Allie Casazza, and I was honestly surprised by that! Upon further reflection, I believe Casazza is an influencer on social media, so I shouldn’t have been that surprised. But I randomly picked up Casazza’s book from a library display so I didn’t know her or the size of her following until now. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, on the other hand, is doing okay but not as well as I thought. The hype has died down a bit so I shouldn’t have been surprised at this one either honestly. But I for sure thought it’d be the most popular of my posts. In a way it is, since it’s gotten more comments than any of the others though.

Something else that surprised me is the amount of spam! On my main account I don’t get as much spam but when I was at the height of posting on my main account I would get tons. My bookstagram is new, so I honestly didn’t expect it. But every single post I put up automatically gets a spam comment, weirdly enough. I just leave them because it’s a comment saying “promote your post at this random account” and not like trying to scam anyone, but still so weird! I have 10 posts up and 21 followers for goodness sakes!

I suppose this is a good time to talk about what goals I have for the account. Honestly, I don’t have many. For me, I’m looking to have fun on Instagram again. Although the app is moving away from being a photo sharing app, I still wanted to have fun and share what I’ve been reading lately. And while we’re being honest, it’s fun to show off how many books I’ve had the privilege of enjoying! I think I’ll commit to my bookstagram until the end of 2022 and then reevaluate if I want to continue. As long as it’s still fun, I’ll keep posting though!

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So that’s my new bookstagram! Feel free to follow my account and let me know if you have a bookstagram as well so I can follow you! I plan is to follow back those book accounts who find me via my blog, so leave me a comment on my booksta letting me know you came from my blog so I can follow!

Thanks for reading!

Pamela

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