I am a bibliophile. I kid you not but from emotionally devastating fictions by Khaled Hosseini to notorious short stories from Malgudi Days, I read everything.

If you can slightly relate to what I’m saying, I’d like you to meet some of India’s most celebrated book-readers/reviewers/critics. They are called Booktubers and have got more than 18,000 followers on YouTube.

One such page is Books on Toast. One of the founding members, Sharin Bhatti, told The Hindu, “We are on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. We follow a different strategy for each. It’s really fun engaging with readers from around the world on social media. We get to discover so much more about books and our reading habits are only getting better.”

“We have experimented with length, format, show style and guests. As of now, we have the long-form podcast called the Botcast in which we discuss a complete genre. Then there are ‘bot shorts’, where we talk about must-reads by an author in less than five minutes. We also have two author-led formats: one called Clueless Critic with Kunal Kamra, where Kunal interviews an author in his signature dry, fun way in front of a live audience. There’s another called Unlikely Pairings where we get an author and a celebrity guest to have a discussion with one another,” she added.

She, along with co-founder Anuya Jakatdar, have been interacting with her audience discussing books from all genres, sometimes in the company of interesting guests like renowned stand-up comedians.

According to the girls, their Instagram and Twitter pages help as a supplement to their main podcast. Sharin said, “Instagram has a huge book-lover community. I have just started focussing on the platform to create unique book-related content that will help me connect with my audience better. They love Instagram lives.”

Another Booktuber is Manpreet Kaur (a.k.a Indian Booktuber) who has more than 9,000 subscribers to her YouTube channel. She explained, “There is a benchmark that you have to hit, after which growth is exponential. I had to struggle to get people to hit ‘subscribe’ in the beginning. But once I gained a certain number of followers, my videos became more visible, and growth was much faster. Plus, YouTube now works in such a way that those who post more regularly get more visibility.”

There are innumerable book communities on the internet. Are you a part of one? Let us know in the comments section.

h/t: The Hindu