Hello, Readers! Clevenger here!

To echo Graham, articulating how BookTube affected us was a bit difficult at first. We have already covered much of what I wanted to say in previous posts. So the challenge is “What are my final thoughts?” and for that… That I have.

The biggest effect that BookTube has had on me is the introduction to the Writing Community. It would be easy to as a writer view everyone as competition and isolate yourself and your ideas away from others. But what I learned was that, for the vast majority, the writing community is an accepting, supporting, and advocating space. We (and I include Graham and I in this now) don’t see each other as threats, but realize that we can all thrive in the same space. That readers don’t have to “choose” between authors, and that everyone can have their moments and light. And that was.. special.

BookTube got us in the door, but it was a gateway to increasing our presence on Social Media (Graham handles Twitter, I handle Instagram/Facebook). It started us on the path that led to this Blog. It made us want to be more active. I’ve commented on posts from other authors supporting their ideas, Graham has offered words of encouragement to authors who have shared struggles with negative comments from outlier a-holes, and we’ve received the same from other authors. Writing was a passion, but now the Writing Community felt like a home. And we were welcomed.

With this newfound support, Graham and I became even more excited. The pipe-dream became real. We could publish (self, indie, traditional… who knows?!). We could share our work with the world and even if it was only a dozen people, that could be enough. And the more we dove into BookTube, the better we found our way.

Watching Merphy Napier and Daniel Greene be excited about concepts in fantasy that Graham and I had already thought of gave us a sense of “being on the right path.” We would exchange these videos back and forth and say “Look they want more races! We wanted that! How cool!?” and “We want to break stereotypes and have our two male protagonists be better friends and unafraid to hug, cry on each other’s shoulders, and be vulnerable. They’re praising a book that has a great friendship as a core. We’re doing something exciting here!”. Our story became the best version of itself because we would latch onto ideas that we were exploring and “amp them up.” And we found that at its heart, this was what we were trying to tell anyway, it just gave us clarity.

Watching writing videos from Diane Callahan and Brandon Sanderson gave us concrete examples of how to better structure our prose. We’re more active writers. We expanded our senses and gave deeper immersion into our world. Specifically, my dialogue became sharper and more intense, which drove the story more and improved my pacing and sensation of getting lost in the story. Over the last two years, I have become a better storyteller, a better writer, and have been embracing the passion of being an author. All because BookTube gave me a home.

Lessons learned, sure. But BookTube gave me hope in this new identity and allowed me to share it with Graham in a tangible way. We could point to an “outside” source and say to each other. “See, we’re not crazy. This actually will work!” And that’s a great feeling.

So, that wraps up BookTube and its effect on Graham Clevenger. Stay tuned, we have a few great topics coming up next. I think you all will enjoy them.

Be kind.

-Clevenger