In the last few years I've gotten into the habit of watching "book tube" videos on YouTube, which is to say watching people review and talk about books. I think I can credit it for a revival of my book reading. Since the turn of the century, I maybe read a dozen books a year. Even less when I started writing my own stories. But in 2022, I at least started to read 40 books, in 2023, that number jumped to 108, and settled down to a respectable 53 last year. Those 53 books included longer and a wider variety than I'd been reading before. All to the good, this in spite of the fact that most of the YouTube videos I watch are on books I'm not very interested in.
Specifically, I watch channels devoted mostly to fantasy books. Which is hard to explain, since I'm not really a fan of fantasy. I read one every now and again, but most of the books they talk about I have no desire to read. I first started watching science fiction channels, but these days I like science fiction even less than fantasy. In fact I don't like science fiction at all.
So why am I wasting my time hearing about books I'm never likely to read? A good question. One reason may be that some of these channels cover more than fantasy, and I've read a number of non-fantasy books they've promote, as well as some of the fantasy ones that sound vaguely interesting. But the main reason is that they talk about what they like in books, and being a writer of books, I am interested in that.
Alas, I have to admit that I doubt any of them would like my books. I don't write the books they, and likely many readers, seem to like. I've identified four of those reasons why.
The first is that these book people value being emotionally moved by the stories they read. The more the better. Just as sports fans savor the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, it seems that readers, at least booktubers, want their books to stir emotions in them. I, on the other hand, am not a fan of strong emotions. I much prefer peaceful contemplation and a pleasant, uneventful life to strong emotions, in both my life and my reading. This bias is likely reflected in my writing. I don't write strong emotional scenes or situations. The first person narrator doesn't dwell on his emotions, and the other characters' emotions are only seen, not felt. I'm quite sure my books would not deliver the emotional impact these readers look for in a book.
Secondly, as much as I like to think that my stories are character driven, I don't think they measure up to the book tubers' masters of that trait. They cite Stephen King and Robin Hobbs as masters of characters. I've tried reading both those authors and DNF booth attempts. The King book was 11/22/63. I found that I was too deeply into the head of its first person narrator - too many trivial thoughts such that I found it vaguely creepy, in fact. I abandoned the Hobbs book after pages and pages of a side character thinking about mostly trivial things that had little to do with the story at hand. It was just too boring. I don't know how my characters come across to the reader, but I'm not much of a "people person." I don't make a study of people, and no doubt that is reflected in my narrator's description of people and my treatment of them. Thus, I think my writing may well fall short of what character-driven readers expectations.
Thirdly, many, though not all, of these book tubers value beautiful writing. One book tuber spend half an hour breaking down two paragraphs from a Janny Wurts fantasy book praising how masterful and wonderful her writing is. The first line of which was; "Dakar snapped awake, gasping and soaked in runnels of terrified sweat." All I could think of was, I didn't know sweat could be terrified. As for runnels, I'd just have to guess what they were, not too hard, but still. Essentially this is what I would consider purple prose. We all have our own sense of beauty, so this is not a criticism. I prefer wit and cleverness in my reading, and try to put some of that in my writing. Otherwise I'm more in the Georges Simenon school of writing, which is to say, writing plainly to build scenes upon very concrete descriptions in order to create a sense of place and mood. At least that is what I aspire to do.
And fourthly, they often talk about the themes in books, issues they addresses in the narration. Often deep and serious themes and subjects are said to be explored in the story. I have no idea how much of this has been explicably put into the story and how much these readers find for themselves in the story. All I know is that I never read a book to analyses it for themes. Nor do I ever explore themes in my books. If you found any, great. But I'm innocent. I write solely to take the reader someplace outside of everyday life, and to entertain them while there. Period. I've no wisdom to impart, but then, no one listens to me anyway. Indeed, I consider my novels light reading, and I'm unapologetic about that.
So, long story short, my work would not be a booktuber's darling. Many authors send these book tubers books to be featured for a minute in their "book hauls" and in the hopes that they might, someday, read it, and love it, and promote it. I'm not going to bother. I'm pretty sure I have to look elsewhere for my audience.
These days I'm slowly expanding my book tube viewing, looking for someone who has similar taste to me. Anything is possible. Nevertheless, I do enjoy hearing what they say, not only about books, but about their life as "content creators" on YouTube, as there are parallels to the problems faced by author/publishers finding and maintaining an audience. All in all, an enjoyable way to spend one's free time.
