The Struggles of Bookstagram

Happy Fourth of July to everyone celebrating (and happy Thursday to those who aren’t). I’m planning on spending to day with my family, eating, and hopefully reading!

Today I’m spilling the tea about some of the struggles that I and many other small bookstagrammers face.

What is bookstagram? It is an Instagram account that is dedicated to books and other bookish things. Everyone has opinions on what should be on a bookstagram account. Personally I think that as long as 80ish% of your Instagram photos are bookish related, you’re a bookstagram account. But others think that the whole account should revolve around books. 

I like bookstagram because I’ve been able to talk to other book loving people though this community, but there are a lot of people out there just looking for followers to become reps and get ARCs. Sometimes it’s really hard not to compare myself to these other people who have thousands of followers when their photos look so cookie cutter.

But whatevs. Anyway, let’s get into some of the struggles.

Gaining/Keeping Followers

New (and smaller) bookstagrammers face this struggle EVERY DAY. It doesn’t matter how many times I add my account to follow threads, interact with people and their account, and boost accounts, it feels like the numbers always stay the same with little improvements.

Then on the same side of the coin, there are those followers that will unfollow me for something like lighting (this hasn’t happened, but using it as an example because people find the smallest of things to unfollow).

Or there’s those people that follow me with over 10 thousand followers and only follow a thousand at the most. Chances are this people is following book accounts and unfollowing a few days later thinking I won’t notice. Typically I don’t follow accounts with ratios this crazy because of that reason.

Follow Threads

As a person trying to expand my bookstagram (and blog through IG),I put my account on those follow for a follow threads (and the ones where people follow others looking for more interaction such as likes and comments). Well the thing is, it’s really hard to find people that actually interact once I follow them 7/10 times, the other person ends up liking a few of my photos and just stops all while I like the majority of their photos that come across my time line. Recently, I try not to add my account to these threads because of this.

Then, there’s the people who follow me from these threads and don’t like or comment in the post that they followed my. Like how am I supposed to know that this person saw me from my comment in the thread especially when there’s 50+ other accounts. I’m sorry, I’m not about to sit and scroll through a but load of comments with account links/handles to see if a new IG follower found me from the thread.

Scheduling

Some people get really antsy when you don’t stick to a regular posting schedule. Some people post daily while others post a couple times a week. I try to post at least every other day (because, hello, taking photos take time). The middle of the month around the 15th gets really busy because of different book boxes photo challenges, so I may post up to 3 photos a day because there’s no other way to space out posting.

Hashtags

Hashtags are a small accounts best friend because they help expose my photos to people who don’t follow me. However, I have to be care with which ones I pick because I want one with a good number of photos attached to it (because I know that it’s one that a lot of other people use and will therefore help others see my photo) and is relevant to the content of my photo. Instagram has a 30 hashtag limit so it’s always trial and error with each photo.

Rep/Influencer Searches

It can get so discouraging when I’m not chosen to be a rep because I don’t have enough followers (even though the company says that numbers are taken into consideration but aren’t the main factor in choosing the rep). I understand that companies are trying to find people that will be able to share their products to a large audience. It especially stings when there are like 12 different accounts entered in the search and the company is selecting 5 people and I barely missed it. I know that my photos have improved tremendously since I began back in September of last year, and I work so hard to maintain and improve the quality of my photos; and I have to sit back and take the L because my follower count is “low”.

Random Comments

Y’all it’s so annoying when an author comments on my photos saying that I can check out their book on Amazon for $3.99. I’d much rather have an author slide into my DMs asking if I’d be interested in either reading their book or taking a photo, but when they go to my comments (in hopes that others will see it), it leaves a bad impression with me.

Then there’s the scam “art photography” account that will add my photo to their page… if I pay them.

And then, there’s the random people who leave hateful comments trying to get me to say something. It’s like no matter how nicely I tell them that these thing are my opinions, they keep trying and trying to get get fired up and I’m like bye Felecia.

This is all I can think of at the current moment. Do you have any of these same problems (or different ones)? Let me know below!

Happy reading until next time,