bookstagram: part 1 – welcome & intro

“Bookstagram” is your guide to the book community on Instagram. I am no expert at being a bookstagrammer nor do I claim to be. I am starting this series simply because I have received many questions from followers on Instagram asking me for tips & tricks, how to edit photos etc. I thought that writing a short blog series on it would be the best way.

If you are looking into creating a bookstagram, joining a social media community of book lovers, taking book photos, etc. this series is for you! I will be revealing all my tips and tricks for you guys during this series. This series will be a little dense word wise, but bare with me. I’ll highlight the important points and make it easy for you to skim through! This will be the first post in this series where I will be going over the basics of how to join #bookstagram.

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Okay, so you love to read. You might have a Goodreads where you get book recommendations, follow a few book blogs/ own a book blog, etc.

You may or may not have discovered the world of book-stagram (Book Instagram). Well, first off, welcome.

Bookstagram is a community of book-related Instagrams who have a passion for books, photography, fangirling/fanboying about books or more. It’s a social media where we all join together to be book nerds basically. It’s different than blogs/ other book related sites because it’s quick to access & generally is a mobile platform.

Here are my first few introductory step I think you should take:

Things You’ll Need

• Smart phone/ tablet – Instagram is an app based platform, without a smart phone or tablet that can access apps, you cannot use Instagram to post pictures. The web version is only for viewing.
• Camera (optional)

Name yourself.

If you already have a book blog/twitter or some sort of book related handle, you might want to reuse that username (if it’s available) as your Instagram.

If you don’t, then you might want to give it some thought. Is there a certain book, genre, series you like? Any specific words you like? etc. This may sound silly, but usernames are a bit tricky so think of what interests you, represents you etc.

Tips:

• Keep it short, it honestly would be very difficult for you and others to remember your username if you chose something like fanGrl4eva128366774
• Make it you! Make it something meaningful for you, because most people don’t change their usernames very often once they have chose one.
• Choose a unique name. This is important because you want to make it easy to use this username across different platforms (like if you were interested in creating a book blog, book-lr, twitter, etc.). Also, if chose a generic username like “bibliophile” “booklover”, your username won’t stand out and it won’t be unique to who you are. Use adjectives, incorporate your real name in it, etc.
• Don’t stress too much! If you really can’t think of anything, just pick a temporary one for now and think about it later.

My username as you know, is myriadinklings. I started my blog first with that name and decided to use the same one on Instagram. Myriad Inklings literally means countless/endless notions or knowledge. This was just my way of describing what my blog would be about! It doesn’t make a lot of sense to most people, but I like the meaning behind it and have stuck with it since then.

Upload a profile picture.
It can be anything! You, your bookshelves, your favorite book… unless it’s too off topic (like a cow or something – not ideal). However, having a profile picture is definitely a good idea. Being the gray human body shape empty icon on Instagram isn’t the best, let’s be real here. Also, it will draw people to your profile to see what kind of pictures you take more. A lot of spam bots don’t have profile pictures, and you definitely don’t want to be confused as a spam bot!

Write your bio.
I am very bad at talking about myself, maybe you are too or maybe you aren’t. Whichever category you are a part of, write a quick bio. It doesn’t have to be about yourself; it can be your favorite quote, your blog website, your goodreads link, your reading goals, etc. You just don’t want your bio to be blank space (haha, tswift reference!!)

This is what mine looks like:

I have a LOT of information in my bio, but you don’t need to. I think having at least a link of some sort (Blog or Goodreads or twitter) +  a few words or quotes or your reading goal is definitely enough. However, this is definitely important to have. This is the first impression people will get when they click on your Instagram. Yes, first impressions matter!

Now that you’ve set up your profile, it’s time to make your first post!
For your first post on Instagram, just take a picture of a book, any book, or your bookshelves, or even yourself! Honestly, don’t sweat too much about the quality or style of the photo yet, you have plenty of time to figure out that later. What you should worry about is what you say in the photo. Introduce yourself and why you are on Instagram. Yes, people are definitely interested. My first photo on Instagram holds a bit of a sentimental value to me so I never deleted it, here’s what I said when I joined bookstagram on April 29, 2015.

It’s also good to include a few hashtags such as #bibliophile #bookstagram #reading #books etc. This way, people will be able to find your Instagram.

You are now done. Congrats, you are now officially part of the bookstagram community, aka, an official bookstagrammer  *throws confetti*

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Now that we have the basics down, let’s move on to the other things. How do I choose a theme for my Instagram? What do I post? How do I take nice pictures? What do I use to edit photos? How do I get more followers? How do I gain more exposure for my Instagram? etc. Questions like these will be answered in the following parts of this series. Leave questions below about bookstagram for my next post.

I hope you enjoyed the first part of this series and I really hope it was helpful for you.

Also, if you wanted to check out my Instagram 🙂 -> @myriadinklings.