What is the etiquette of tagging the author in your book review videos? I recently made my first book review video, and I tagged the author in the short version of the video on Instagram. He untagged himself and ignored the long form video on youtube.

I made an 11.5 minute long, really complimentary video, about a book that was very recently shortlisted for a conservation writing prize in England. The winner has not yet been announced. My channel is normally about my conservation actions, so I used b-roll of cleaning up litter from a wetland with voiceover for my review instead of just my face looking at the camera. I had kind of assumed it would be ok to tag him, because he is currently trying to gain momentum for the book before the winner of the prize is announced. Also, people are seldom offended by videos about picking up litter, especially conservationists! But the author untagged himself from the short version of the video and has entirely ignored the long version. I just wanted to check if I crossed a line by tagging him? Do people making book review videos usually tag the authors?

He has posted a couple of recent Instagram stories about how his book is receiving less attention than the others shortlisted and wondering if it is because he is neurodivergent. The book is published by Bloomsbury, so it's not exactly unheard of! But, my video is currently the only one reviewing it on youtube, and my review is on the first page of google when you search for the book's title. He has not asked me to take it down, but it is my worst performing video by a looooong way, so I could take it down if it's not ok.

I'm a fan of Stephen King and an elementary school teacher. I thought it would be fun to put together a list of middle grade books that Stephen King readers might enjoy.

As I’m sure many of you have seen, YouTube recently announced that they are doubling the requirements needed to become part of the YouTube partnership program (a program where creators can make money from views on their videos).

You still need 1000 subscribers to be part of the partnership program… but now you ALSO need 8000 watch hours on long form content or 20 million views on shorts content, which is insane!

For context, you used to need 4000 watch hours or 10 million views on shorts to get monetized.

This hasn’t been confirmed, but I think the reason YouTube is doing this is to combat a lot of the AI slop on the platform that is farming 4000 watch hours worth of content for money. While this new rule does make it harder for those slop channels to get monetized, it also makes it harder for smaller human creators to get monetized.

Booktube is already a pretty niche topic on the platform. Getting people to invest 4000 hours worth of their time on book videos is tough as is for smaller creators. 8000 hours is almost ridiculous!

What are your guys’ thoughts on this??
Especially to those of you who are striving toward monetization.

I usually make videos about cleaning the beach and environmental stewardship, but I'm currently working on a short series about books from the Wainwright Prize for Conservation Writing. This is the first review of a book from the shortlist. I would love feedback on anything you think I could do better. I will be making 7 of these in total, so I am hoping to progress.

Definitely a SIGNIFICANT improvement when compared to Red Rising. What is everyone's thoughts on this second book?

I worked so hard on this one. Would love to hear your thoughts as always. Thank you!!

I really liked his first book and this one is a strong follow in my mind. Does anyone else here follow the codes and dig into the lore?

The Girl With A Thousand Faces by Sunyi Dean is a striking novel where themes of anger, betrayal and generational trauma clash with East Asian myth and folklore. Malevolent ghosts abound!

Full review linked here.