The Reading Bud

Contrary to what most of the bloggers and vloggers suggest, I have a separate Bookstagram for my book blog, The Reading Bud. I created my Bookstagram account when it became clear to me that I might actually become an author and would need my Instagram for writing-related and personal pictures photos rather than the book-related pictures that I read and review. So on 1st April 2016, I created my book-related Instagram account, aka Bookstagram, and over the course of the 2 years I’ve had it, I’ve learned a lot about book photography.

If you’re a regular Instagrammer then you might know that posting consistently good-looking pictures is not an easy task; some days are better than others, yes, but some days are worse. What is even more exhausting is to maintain a schedule for posting pictures along with having to edit these pictures to make them look more presentable. And don’t even get me started on the wearisome and dull task of coming up with captions for each and every picture.

I’ve been asked, by emails obviously, about how I maintain my Bookstagram. Now, I do not have a lot of followers or a really, really snazzy account (though I do think my account is pretty cool), I guess, why I get asked about my Bookstagram is because I manage a decent Bookstagram in spite of being an author and pretty much managing around a hundred other accounts on various platforms. God only knows managing one Ig account is difficult enough and I have two! Along with a separate Fb page for TRB as well as a Twitter account (and I’m not even starting on the three different blogs I manage, including this one.) So I decided to do a couple of articles on how I tackle Bookstagramming and how I manage to keep surviving this endless whirlwind.

If you’re new to Bookstagramming or are planning to create your own Bookstagram, this might be a good place for you to start as you’d get the first-hand experience of someone who was (and still is in many ways) an amateur. If you’ve already begun your big journey and realize that you can do better with a bit of some tips and tricks (we all can always do with some tips and tricks) then you’re at the right place. And if you’re a pro, then do share your advice with the rest of us in the comments below to help us learn from your experiences.

Coming back to where I was, I’ve decided to do a couple of articles which will be on the following topics:

• Photography
• Editing
• Scheduling
• Captioning
• Socializing

So stay tuned for my Bookstagram-related series of articles in the coming weeks.

I’m not a pro in any way, but I have been complimented enough times regarding the way my photography has evolved and well, I’ve worked pretty hard for it too as I love photography in general. But photography is not all that is needed for maintaining a Bookstagram account, you need to be able to edit the photos too, otherwise, you’ll end up with almost good photos and not the good ones. I’ve been fortunate to have studied photo editing when I studied 3D animation film-making, but to be honest, Bookstagram pictures can very well be edited with free software and sometimes even directly with Instagram’s various settings. And I am not talking about filters, I’m talking about adjusting every aspect fo the picture by oneself, as filters are just the quick fix and rarely give the desired effect. Though, sometimes filters do come in handy in order to determine which shades of light to use to make the picture look ‘perkier.’

There is so much to share on this subject that I’ll better stop right here for now and get started on the next post for the first topic – photography.

If you have any suggestions or any questions related to Bookstagram then do not hesitate to comment below.