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Greetings and salutations. It is I, Graham.

This week we are here to talk about the worst advice we picked up from BookTubers. So.. um… I guess I can talk about how we kept seeing videos about “first time writer advice” that really weren’t super helpful. Not because they were poorly done, but because pretty much everything being discussed, we were already doing. Granted, there were some things that were helpful reminders or even refreshers from high school grammar. So that’s the best I can come up with, articles that were helpful, I am sure, for others, but really didn’t pertain to me. Of course everyone is different, so the information is going to hit different, and be useful at different levels. But that’s the extent of any “negative” advice I can think of. Nothing really negative.

Therefore I’m going to talk about… well, I suppose I can mention how each writer is different, needs different advice, and is going to take away different things from different videos. Oh yeah, I covered that above in barely more than two sentences. So instead I am going to let the cat out of the bag, so to speak, and discuss come of the conversations that Clevenger and I have had about possibly starting up our own channel, either as a YouTube channel or an audio podcast. Of course, if you are going to attempt something like this, you need a hook, a setup, a gimmick, a plan. Of course, we found one. See, all the BookTubers and book reviewers operate as solo channels, with one person as the face video or podcast. However, we noticed that a trend with many of the Dungeons and Dragons YouTube channels is that when they review a product or discuss game rules, they run a two man setup, often scripted, but with the pair feeding off one another in whatever they are discussing.

This is something we see in several other genres of YouTube channels, but for some reason not in BookTubers and book reviewers. So we have thought about this, and discussed the pros and cons of trying this for ourselves. Of course, one of the biggest cons of this is that I am insanely, clinically camera shy. I mean, I was once hospitalized for a panic attack that was bad enough to give me a heart arrhythmia. Add to this that there are specific aspects to my appearance that I am not happy with, and you would think this would be a horrible idea that we should all be running away from as quickly as possible. At least, that was my initial reaction when Clevenger brought up this idea. I shut it down out of hand.

After a while I started thinking about his proposal. I started looking for any BookTuber channels with multiple people running them. The most I could find were the occasional visiting speaker, or vs-style collaborations among friends. I began to rethink this idea, especially if it were done in an audio-only style such as a podcast. Then I came across Diane Callahan, and saw how even in a video format such as a YouTube video, we didn’t necessarily need to be onscreen if we had decent graphics. These realizations made me go back and revisit the idea, going back and watching some of the two-man D&D videos and getting ideas for how a buddy BookTube channel could look. I went back to Clevenger and informed him that the idea could go back on the table.

Will we start up a YouTube book review channel? Maybe, possibly, who knows. But it is being considered now, so hands off our idea, buster. Anyway, enough of my rambling for this week. Until next time…

Don’t forget to love one another.

Graham