A Look Back at 11 Years of BookTube: How My Reading Habits Have Changed Over Time

I started my BookTube channel in 2011, and over the years, I've seen a significant shift in my reading habits. For the first half of my journey, I exclusively read young adult books, which was my jam at that time. I was very much on booktube, thriving, and enjoying every minute of it. However, as time went by, my reading tastes have changed, and I've grown more as a reader.

At the beginning of my BookTube journey, if someone had said one of my favorite genres to read now would be thrillers, I would have laughed in their face. I didn't do scary things or even easy thrillers. But now, here I am, loving reading thrillers and even exploring horror books. My tastes have changed, and my reading tastes have also evolved significantly over the years.

The Last 11 Years of BookTube: A Journey of Growth and Change

As I look back on my 11-year journey with BookTube, it's amazing to see how far I've come. When I started this channel, I was just 22 years old, and now, I'm turning 34 in a month. As we age, our interests and reading habits tend to change, and mine is no exception. What used to be my favorite genre has become something new, and that's perfectly okay.

My Reading Habits Have Evolved

I've grown older, and my reading tastes have shifted. I'm now fascinated by thrillers, which I would have laughed at just a few years ago. My love for reading has led me to explore different genres, and I enjoy discovering new books and authors. This change in my reading habits is not just about the types of books I read but also about how I approach reading. I've become more discerning, and I take the time to carefully choose the books that interest me.

The Future of BookTube: Plans and Aspirations

When it comes to the future of BookTube, I have plans, but they're not drastic changes. I don't plan on leaving this channel anytime soon. I love what I do, and I feel incredibly fortunate to be able to share my passion for reading with all of you. My husband makes a significant amount of money from our YouTube channel, which helps support our household. This financial stability allows me to pursue my creative interests without worrying about the financial aspects.

Why BookTube Matters to Me

BookTube has become an essential part of my life, and I'm grateful for it. As a stay-at-home mom, I need an outlet that provides a sense of purpose and fulfillment. Reading and discussing books with you all have become that outlet for me. It's a way for me to connect with like-minded individuals who share my passion for literature.

Looking Ahead: The Future of BookTube

I don't have any grand plans for the future of BookTube, but I do hope to continue creating content that resonates with all of you. As my children grow older, I may not be as strapped for time, and I might be able to take on more projects or collaborate with other creators. The possibility of doing bigger and better things is exciting, but for now, I'm just happy to keep sharing my love of reading with you.

What's Next?

I'd love to hear from you all – have you been with me since the beginning? Do you still watch my videos regularly? Your feedback means the world to me. It would be amazing to know that my channel has been a part of your life for so long. Whether it's been just last week or 10 years ago, I appreciate your support and enthusiasm.

Thank You

Before I sign off, I want to thank each and every one of you for being part of this journey with me. It's been an incredible 11 years, and I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to share my love of reading with all of you. Here's to many more years of BookTube adventures – let's see what the future holds!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello everyone today i'm here to do a fun video so if you don't know i've been on booktube for quite some time in fact i'm coming up on my 11 years here that's right 11 years of videos if you can't believe it i can't either i cannot believe that i have been making videos pretty consistently for 11 years it blows my mind so i thought i would do something fun where it's kind of like a tag but not i just basically made these questions for myself to answer for you guys so you can know some history on my booktube channel of why i have it you know different random things like that so this is just a fun thing to do i'll leave the questions down below in case you want to do it but this is just a good way for in case some of you guys that are new to this channel want to figure out more about me and how i got into booktube and my journey with it or in case you've been off for a while a refresher if you will have the questions down below in case you're interested but this is just a little back story on my booktube channel the first question obviously is how long have you been on booktube and that is 11 years like i said a long long time question number two is why did you start this channel i think was asked i think this gets asked a lot to all booktubers if not all youtubers in general my main um pretense for starting this channel was to talk about books shocker um i'm an avid reader i was when i was younger with the introduction of harry potter it kind of tapered off i read occasionally in high school and then kind of after high school when i was like um in my very early 20s page like i think i started at 22 because i'm 33 now so i was just getting back into reading specifically young adult books and none of my friends in real life read books nor they do do they really want to talk to me about them that's changed a little bit over the trajectory of my life but back then nobody wanted to talk about them so i think i think i read divergent by veronica roth which was one of my big favorites as you guys know um and i was like i need someone to talk about so i think i just randomly looked it up on youtube and lo and behold that's how i discovered booktube and the wide array of people that just come on there to talk about books i was like i want to do that i want to talk to people about books because i don't have anybody to talk about books so that is the main reason why i started this channel i know it's a big shocker i started to talk about books when was your first video ever uploaded so my first video ever uploaded was called fave books that's right just fave books and it was uploaded on august 10 2011. so a long time ago um and in that video in fact i probably the past in fact probably the first two or three years of my booktube journey is just not the best quality i think my very first video i had the tv on because i was like i can't be too quiet and series is amazing and the best one of the series to me is the hunger games and i'm sorry i'm not pronouncing this is the hunger games by susan collins and it is amazing amazing book obviously it's changed a lot from there and my not only has my equipment have gotten better but my like um quality of videos as well as my reading taste have changed so it's been a lot like i think my first five videos in particular are just like a lot of um's and this i don't know you could just really tell a person's journey from their first video to the most current one next up what are my favorite videos to film so i film a wide array of videos on my favorite videos are to film a lot of recommended reads i really love when i get to dissect um like a fake dating trope or a books and podcast or my favorite thriller so i love kind of those niche videos to film soccer i also love filming seasonal reads you guys know i am known for being seasonal i'm known for always having a seasonal video for every single year like for fall winter spring and summer i love doing that i love coming out with new ones each year i also love doing vlogs i don't do the best especially not anymore with two kids i was starting to get pretty decent at it with one kid then i added my second kid and i was like oh my gosh i cannot devote the time and quality and beautiful aestheticness if i want to with vlogs but i do like filming them is what gear do you use to make your videos happen and i put this in here because i get asked this a lot so i'm going to show you in fact i'm going to show you right here on my iphone what my setup is and this is what i see my living room is decent so don't worry about that so right here i have my camera and my camera is a canon 5d mark ii it is an expensive camera i do need an upgrade i use this to also take photography because i am a photographer as well both my kind of jobs are side hustle jobs i have this rhodes mic don't look at it it's crappy it's friends honestly it's not the best but it gets the job done then we have a nice little hdmi cord here that goes to right here which is my brand new piece of equipment hello so i was using an actual computer monitor for a while and then my husband decided hey let's get you like a field monitor i think that's what it's called um and it was i think it was relatively cheap so i just have it on hdmi it just shows that i'm recording i set up a small tripod and there you go that's my setup there's not much to it and i like it that way because like i said time is of the essence for this these videos i have to film has to be quick has to do it so that's what i use um also for like gear wise i do have a um macbook that i edit all my videos on and i still use imovie i know a lot of people use adobe premiere or editing app and i think that's awesome i will get to there at some point but right now imovie is doing it for me it's done it for me for a while i'm not that complicated of a booktuber i kind of wish i was because i could do bigger and better things but that's just kind of where i'm at right now and i think it's working okay stuff is a question uh i'm so excited to answer and that is what are some of your favorite videos that i've ever filmed and there's a few that i have really worked hard on and i'm still very proud of the first one is how to make your own butter beer shake i did this back oh my gosh so long ago i want to say like maybe 2012 2013 it's been a while i was doing um some videos like i think it was called summer spells it was like harry potter read-a-thon with some of my friends here on booktube and we kind of decided to make um like different harry potter videos so i did that one i brought a slider in i got real i had my first voiceover ever i was just very proud of the way i set that up like i did a whole production with like lots of props and stuff and i still really like it i still stand by it i love it and that's it now you know how to make a delicious butter beer shake another fun video that i had such a fun time filming and that is how to watch gilmore girls so i filmed this right before the um new gilmore girls like seasonal one came out a year in the life of gilmore girls like i did like a whole video of like how to watch gilmore girl so i was like you have to have your treats and i did have my husband quiz me on what the talents people were it was just really really fun um it wasn't like overly beautifully production or anything but it was a fun time and i still really love it sorry for rory i team jess team logan team jess team logan i don't know lane kirk tom troubadour jackson miss patty luke also are some readathon videos that i really love in particular i did this readathon a couple years ago called the pop culture read-a-thon where it's literally about pop culture and this one in particular was about 90s movies which was my jam so i did that and i liked it every day i put a different um um clip from a movie i talked about 90s things i showed pictures really screams like the epitome of my childhood it's a christmas i don't know when i want to say it's probably late 90s because it's a christmas and i got the spice world cd and i got a tiger beanie baby and i was living large likewise when i did that i was like this was so much fun i did another vlog where it was like 2000 to 2005 themed that was when i was in high school um so i showed like some pictures of me in high school kind of things like that it was just a fun time it was going down memory lane in particular so i had a really fun time doing that i loved re i loved filming those read-a-thon vlogs in fact like any sort of themed readathon vlog i did i've done a gill marathon vlog which i loved i've done all my tis the seasonathon stuff which is another thing i'm super proud of as i made a readathon i've always wanted to do that and i have um and it's a holiday readathon if you can't tell we didn't do it last year i'm thinking about bringing you back this year oh just as me because i just know everybody's life is so different in fact some of my co-hosts are not even on youtube anymore so which is totally okay everybody's life changes in the blink of an eye i totally understand that but i was thinking you know a lot of people ask me about it so maybe i'll try to bring it back this year but really low key if you're interested in it let me know speaking of videos the next question is where do you get your video ideas from um mainly other creators i will not say i am the most creative person ever i am not i would really love to be there are so many amazing um booktubers that have such great creative minds and translate that into videos like kayla from booksalala riley from riley marie mario bessette is kind of doing her home rhino but making it with books and things like that and it's just so creative and amazing and i wish i could do that but i just i don't know why i think my brain's fried from being a mother probably but i just yeah so i don't i'm not as as far as booktube goes i'm one of the most least creative people out there probably i do your typical videos which are like hauls and wrap-ups and recommended reads and i would really like to get outside the box and i do occasionally with different things like i've done a video of what book box is right for you or you know other things but i just it's time for me time is really hard to come by i think honestly i'm just going to be straight up if i didn't have children i could probably be very creative and do really aesthetic vlogs like desi like desi she has the most aesthetically pleasing reading vlogs and i love them i just i can't do it so i get my video ideas from a lot of other creators like particularly like if they're you know there's a certain trend going around i'll be like oh that's interesting or do booktube tags so am i the most creative no next up is how has your reading changed or progressed over the years so like i said i started this channel in 2011. for the first half of my booktube journey i read exclusively young adult books that was my jam that was very much in on booktube she really exploded with young adult books and was really thriving and now it's obviously changed because our reading has changed so yeah i don't really do my books like anymore i've done a whole video i think this year about kind of saying goodbye to ya books and be totally okay with that and it was really heart pill for me to swallow because i founded my channel on reading young little books how can i turn my back on it i'm not turning my back on it i've just grown more obviously i started this channel i was 22. i'm now 33 about to turn 34 in a month so i'm getting older and when i get when you know when you get older sometimes your chase change and things like that so my reading has progressed a lot like at the very beginning of my booktube journey if you would ever said one of my favorite genres to read now would be thrillers i would laugh in your face because i'm like i don't do anything like that i don't do scary things i don't do thrillers even like the easy thrillers no but now here i am and i love reading thrillers and i also love reading a few horror books like who am i so my tastes have changed and my reading tastes have changed and progressed a ton and the last question i have for this is what you see for this channel's future like what do you see happening so i've been on this channel now for 11 years so it's a long time so it's a long time i don't plan on going anywhere in time soon this is really honestly like my kind of um getaway if you will um do i make a ton of money from this no do i make some to help contribute to my household and do other things yes so that really does help out a lot i feel like i am kind of um providing somewhat for my household my husband obviously makes the most of the money which is totally okay and it would be totally okay if i may waste the money but i feel like i'm contributing something also this is kind of a good um thing for me to do i am there's you know there's different type of parents i'm that type of parent like i'm a stay-at-home mom yes but i need an outlet this that's the word i was looking for an outlet and this is a great outlet for me for me to read and to talk about books and to have some sort of a work life because i do this as well as i do photography i don't do them enough to like maybe warrant a full-time job or i'm away eight hours a day no i kind of do them when i have time to do them which makes it perfect to kind of fit into my life because like i said i'm a stay-at-home mom i have an almost one-year-old and i have a almost eight-year-old with autism so my i'm strapped for time so but i still love doing this because it provides me like i said an outlet to talk to you guys i love talking to you guys i love sharing what i thought about books i love hearing what you thought about it so my plans aren't for the future for this channel it's not really anything changing as much maybe as my children get older and maybe i'm relied on a little less that sounds horrible but you know what i'm saying but i don't know if that's going to change because i have a special needs on which is totally okay maybe i can do bigger and better things for this channel i would love that because i really do truly love doing this i don't have plans to leave anytime soon because i love doing this i love reading i love talking to you about it i love making bookish reels i love taking book pictures i just love books and i don't want that to change so i'm not going anywhere i hope you're okay with that but yeah that was just kind of a little look back on my booktube journey of how i have got to where i am now and how i've grown older and maybe a little bit wiser i don't know but i would love to know what you thought of this video have you been with me since the very beginning of this channel when did you start watching my videos it could be last week it could be 10 years ago i would love to know seriously i'd love to know if that'd be so interesting to like just see but either way thank you all so much for watching thank you for being here with me for 11 years and hey maybe here's hoping for 11 more years wouldn't that be wild thanks for watching guys byehello everyone today i'm here to do a fun video so if you don't know i've been on booktube for quite some time in fact i'm coming up on my 11 years here that's right 11 years of videos if you can't believe it i can't either i cannot believe that i have been making videos pretty consistently for 11 years it blows my mind so i thought i would do something fun where it's kind of like a tag but not i just basically made these questions for myself to answer for you guys so you can know some history on my booktube channel of why i have it you know different random things like that so this is just a fun thing to do i'll leave the questions down below in case you want to do it but this is just a good way for in case some of you guys that are new to this channel want to figure out more about me and how i got into booktube and my journey with it or in case you've been off for a while a refresher if you will have the questions down below in case you're interested but this is just a little back story on my booktube channel the first question obviously is how long have you been on booktube and that is 11 years like i said a long long time question number two is why did you start this channel i think was asked i think this gets asked a lot to all booktubers if not all youtubers in general my main um pretense for starting this channel was to talk about books shocker um i'm an avid reader i was when i was younger with the introduction of harry potter it kind of tapered off i read occasionally in high school and then kind of after high school when i was like um in my very early 20s page like i think i started at 22 because i'm 33 now so i was just getting back into reading specifically young adult books and none of my friends in real life read books nor they do do they really want to talk to me about them that's changed a little bit over the trajectory of my life but back then nobody wanted to talk about them so i think i think i read divergent by veronica roth which was one of my big favorites as you guys know um and i was like i need someone to talk about so i think i just randomly looked it up on youtube and lo and behold that's how i discovered booktube and the wide array of people that just come on there to talk about books i was like i want to do that i want to talk to people about books because i don't have anybody to talk about books so that is the main reason why i started this channel i know it's a big shocker i started to talk about books when was your first video ever uploaded so my first video ever uploaded was called fave books that's right just fave books and it was uploaded on august 10 2011. so a long time ago um and in that video in fact i probably the past in fact probably the first two or three years of my booktube journey is just not the best quality i think my very first video i had the tv on because i was like i can't be too quiet and series is amazing and the best one of the series to me is the hunger games and i'm sorry i'm not pronouncing this is the hunger games by susan collins and it is amazing amazing book obviously it's changed a lot from there and my not only has my equipment have gotten better but my like um quality of videos as well as my reading taste have changed so it's been a lot like i think my first five videos in particular are just like a lot of um's and this i don't know you could just really tell a person's journey from their first video to the most current one next up what are my favorite videos to film so i film a wide array of videos on my favorite videos are to film a lot of recommended reads i really love when i get to dissect um like a fake dating trope or a books and podcast or my favorite thriller so i love kind of those niche videos to film soccer i also love filming seasonal reads you guys know i am known for being seasonal i'm known for always having a seasonal video for every single year like for fall winter spring and summer i love doing that i love coming out with new ones each year i also love doing vlogs i don't do the best especially not anymore with two kids i was starting to get pretty decent at it with one kid then i added my second kid and i was like oh my gosh i cannot devote the time and quality and beautiful aestheticness if i want to with vlogs but i do like filming them is what gear do you use to make your videos happen and i put this in here because i get asked this a lot so i'm going to show you in fact i'm going to show you right here on my iphone what my setup is and this is what i see my living room is decent so don't worry about that so right here i have my camera and my camera is a canon 5d mark ii it is an expensive camera i do need an upgrade i use this to also take photography because i am a photographer as well both my kind of jobs are side hustle jobs i have this rhodes mic don't look at it it's crappy it's friends honestly it's not the best but it gets the job done then we have a nice little hdmi cord here that goes to right here which is my brand new piece of equipment hello so i was using an actual computer monitor for a while and then my husband decided hey let's get you like a field monitor i think that's what it's called um and it was i think it was relatively cheap so i just have it on hdmi it just shows that i'm recording i set up a small tripod and there you go that's my setup there's not much to it and i like it that way because like i said time is of the essence for this these videos i have to film has to be quick has to do it so that's what i use um also for like gear wise i do have a um macbook that i edit all my videos on and i still use imovie i know a lot of people use adobe premiere or editing app and i think that's awesome i will get to there at some point but right now imovie is doing it for me it's done it for me for a while i'm not that complicated of a booktuber i kind of wish i was because i could do bigger and better things but that's just kind of where i'm at right now and i think it's working okay stuff is a question uh i'm so excited to answer and that is what are some of your favorite videos that i've ever filmed and there's a few that i have really worked hard on and i'm still very proud of the first one is how to make your own butter beer shake i did this back oh my gosh so long ago i want to say like maybe 2012 2013 it's been a while i was doing um some videos like i think it was called summer spells it was like harry potter read-a-thon with some of my friends here on booktube and we kind of decided to make um like different harry potter videos so i did that one i brought a slider in i got real i had my first voiceover ever i was just very proud of the way i set that up like i did a whole production with like lots of props and stuff and i still really like it i still stand by it i love it and that's it now you know how to make a delicious butter beer shake another fun video that i had such a fun time filming and that is how to watch gilmore girls so i filmed this right before the um new gilmore girls like seasonal one came out a year in the life of gilmore girls like i did like a whole video of like how to watch gilmore girl so i was like you have to have your treats and i did have my husband quiz me on what the talents people were it was just really really fun um it wasn't like overly beautifully production or anything but it was a fun time and i still really love it sorry for rory i team jess team logan team jess team logan i don't know lane kirk tom troubadour jackson miss patty luke also are some readathon videos that i really love in particular i did this readathon a couple years ago called the pop culture read-a-thon where it's literally about pop culture and this one in particular was about 90s movies which was my jam so i did that and i liked it every day i put a different um um clip from a movie i talked about 90s things i showed pictures really screams like the epitome of my childhood it's a christmas i don't know when i want to say it's probably late 90s because it's a christmas and i got the spice world cd and i got a tiger beanie baby and i was living large likewise when i did that i was like this was so much fun i did another vlog where it was like 2000 to 2005 themed that was when i was in high school um so i showed like some pictures of me in high school kind of things like that it was just a fun time it was going down memory lane in particular so i had a really fun time doing that i loved re i loved filming those read-a-thon vlogs in fact like any sort of themed readathon vlog i did i've done a gill marathon vlog which i loved i've done all my tis the seasonathon stuff which is another thing i'm super proud of as i made a readathon i've always wanted to do that and i have um and it's a holiday readathon if you can't tell we didn't do it last year i'm thinking about bringing you back this year oh just as me because i just know everybody's life is so different in fact some of my co-hosts are not even on youtube anymore so which is totally okay everybody's life changes in the blink of an eye i totally understand that but i was thinking you know a lot of people ask me about it so maybe i'll try to bring it back this year but really low key if you're interested in it let me know speaking of videos the next question is where do you get your video ideas from um mainly other creators i will not say i am the most creative person ever i am not i would really love to be there are so many amazing um booktubers that have such great creative minds and translate that into videos like kayla from booksalala riley from riley marie mario bessette is kind of doing her home rhino but making it with books and things like that and it's just so creative and amazing and i wish i could do that but i just i don't know why i think my brain's fried from being a mother probably but i just yeah so i don't i'm not as as far as booktube goes i'm one of the most least creative people out there probably i do your typical videos which are like hauls and wrap-ups and recommended reads and i would really like to get outside the box and i do occasionally with different things like i've done a video of what book box is right for you or you know other things but i just it's time for me time is really hard to come by i think honestly i'm just going to be straight up if i didn't have children i could probably be very creative and do really aesthetic vlogs like desi like desi she has the most aesthetically pleasing reading vlogs and i love them i just i can't do it so i get my video ideas from a lot of other creators like particularly like if they're you know there's a certain trend going around i'll be like oh that's interesting or do booktube tags so am i the most creative no next up is how has your reading changed or progressed over the years so like i said i started this channel in 2011. for the first half of my booktube journey i read exclusively young adult books that was my jam that was very much in on booktube she really exploded with young adult books and was really thriving and now it's obviously changed because our reading has changed so yeah i don't really do my books like anymore i've done a whole video i think this year about kind of saying goodbye to ya books and be totally okay with that and it was really heart pill for me to swallow because i founded my channel on reading young little books how can i turn my back on it i'm not turning my back on it i've just grown more obviously i started this channel i was 22. i'm now 33 about to turn 34 in a month so i'm getting older and when i get when you know when you get older sometimes your chase change and things like that so my reading has progressed a lot like at the very beginning of my booktube journey if you would ever said one of my favorite genres to read now would be thrillers i would laugh in your face because i'm like i don't do anything like that i don't do scary things i don't do thrillers even like the easy thrillers no but now here i am and i love reading thrillers and i also love reading a few horror books like who am i so my tastes have changed and my reading tastes have changed and progressed a ton and the last question i have for this is what you see for this channel's future like what do you see happening so i've been on this channel now for 11 years so it's a long time so it's a long time i don't plan on going anywhere in time soon this is really honestly like my kind of um getaway if you will um do i make a ton of money from this no do i make some to help contribute to my household and do other things yes so that really does help out a lot i feel like i am kind of um providing somewhat for my household my husband obviously makes the most of the money which is totally okay and it would be totally okay if i may waste the money but i feel like i'm contributing something also this is kind of a good um thing for me to do i am there's you know there's different type of parents i'm that type of parent like i'm a stay-at-home mom yes but i need an outlet this that's the word i was looking for an outlet and this is a great outlet for me for me to read and to talk about books and to have some sort of a work life because i do this as well as i do photography i don't do them enough to like maybe warrant a full-time job or i'm away eight hours a day no i kind of do them when i have time to do them which makes it perfect to kind of fit into my life because like i said i'm a stay-at-home mom i have an almost one-year-old and i have a almost eight-year-old with autism so my i'm strapped for time so but i still love doing this because it provides me like i said an outlet to talk to you guys i love talking to you guys i love sharing what i thought about books i love hearing what you thought about it so my plans aren't for the future for this channel it's not really anything changing as much maybe as my children get older and maybe i'm relied on a little less that sounds horrible but you know what i'm saying but i don't know if that's going to change because i have a special needs on which is totally okay maybe i can do bigger and better things for this channel i would love that because i really do truly love doing this i don't have plans to leave anytime soon because i love doing this i love reading i love talking to you about it i love making bookish reels i love taking book pictures i just love books and i don't want that to change so i'm not going anywhere i hope you're okay with that but yeah that was just kind of a little look back on my booktube journey of how i have got to where i am now and how i've grown older and maybe a little bit wiser i don't know but i would love to know what you thought of this video have you been with me since the very beginning of this channel when did you start watching my videos it could be last week it could be 10 years ago i would love to know seriously i'd love to know if that'd be so interesting to like just see but either way thank you all so much for watching thank you for being here with me for 11 years and hey maybe here's hoping for 11 more years wouldn't that be wild thanks for watching guys bye\n"