WHEN BOOKS UNDERGO A REVOLUTION

Transcription

1 WHEN BOOKS UNDERGO A REVOLUTION W e do not read as in the previous century anymore. And guess who is the number one suspect? The Internet of course! But is the Internet so bad as we think or is it renewing our way of reading books? WILL READING DISAPPEAR? Can I ask you a question? Do you spend much time reading in a day? If for you this is a hard question to answer you may belong to that group of people who are reading less and less books. The arrival of digital technologies twenty years ago has changed our ways of reading books. Indeed, we spend more time in front of screens, watching television, scrolling on our phones, and surfing on the Internet, than reading. We notice this change especially among young people who read fewer books and, most of all, read less for pleasure. Since they entered middle-school, they have lost the taste for literature, or at least for classic literature. In fact, young people s approach to culture has evolved. They no longer use books to improve their knowledge but prefer the Internet where information is available in a variety of forms. But to say that people read less does not mean that they do not read at all! They read as much as before

2 but no longer literary book. In a world where everything goes quicker, people are more attracted and used to short texts such as tweets and newspaper articles that they can read on their phone or tablet. But, reading only with digital technologies is not without consequences: it can lead to a lack of attention and change of our way of understanding and memorizing information. As the journalist David-Julien Rahmil explains in his article How digital technologies change our reader brain, intense use of search engines and online reading transforms our brains and harms our capacity to focus. Once again, the Internet and social media play a role in this whole process. For instance, they have an impact on books young people read because their choices are largely influenced by media and bloggers who generally recommend Teens Bestsellers such as Fantasy and Young Adult genres instead of classic ones. As the YouTuber Antastesia points out in her video Do you need a degree in literature to be on BookTube?, there is a majority of Young Adult fictions because classic books are seen as very difficult reading with a literary context, historical references and sometimes a specific vocabulary that we have to know do if we want to fully understand them. We observe that now, people are not trained anymore to read classic books. THE READING RACE As reading is a solitary activity, it seems a little bit in contradiction with people who attach more and more importance to socialization. To solve this problem, new social media based on the literary world emerged such as Goodreads. As Otis Chandler, the CEO of Goodreads, notes on the site, it is a place where you can see what your friends are reading and vice versa. [ ] You can comment on each other s reviews. You can find your next favorite book. This new kind of community, which has been developing for the last decade, has given birth to another practice: Reading Challenges. But what is the point of such challenges while reading is supposed to be a pleasant activity? As we can notice, Reading Challenges push us to read more. Most of the time, people choose to track the number of books they will read within a year. But, perhaps, this means that readers are more focused on quantity than quality. Read-a-thon and challenges of all kinds do not necessarily help us to read more diverse books or to venture out of our comfort zone. If they are watching BookTube it will absolutely change their reading habits. When I was a kid, I loved to read but I didn't know what to read, so I'd just reread my favorites over and over until a friend found something new and they recommended it to me. If I had access to the BookTube community I'd have been reading so much more because I would have known what was out there for me to read. Merphy Napier

3 Talking of Books differently think most of the creators are reading a lot more middle grade and adult as well now, people just don't realize it because the creators don't specify what age group they're reading from so viewers often times assume it's all Young Adult. I wanted a lot of BookTubers, so I just joined the community I was watching. Merphy Napier Have you ever heard of BookTube? BookTube is the new trend on YouTube. BookTubers, as they are called, talk about their readings in videos. Most of these are about Young Adult novels and books presented in a variety of forms. When we come across BookTube for the first time, we might be lost by the vocabulary used by adepts: book haul (books they bought in the past few months), book tag (they answer questions related to books and their habits of reading), reviews and wrap up (the last books they have read and what they thought of them) or their TBR (To Be Read: books they own, but have not read yet). However, we can find alternative BookTube videos if we look for it. In France, there are people such as La Brigade du Livre, La Librairie des Ombres or The Reading Sisters; in English, you can find Nicole s Adventures in SFF, The Reading Rhodes, CupofBooks or Where there s a Quill. But these channels are more difficult to find. Also, what is disappointing with these videos is that everyone can pretend to be a literary critic. Even if most BookTubers say that it is entirely their own opinion adding even though that other people can enjoy it. Now, in the Digital Age where you can now be whoever you want, it is really easy to say that you are a literary critic and, with just a threeminute-video, destroy the writer s work of an entire year. But today BookTube is more and more controversial and viewers, especially the new ones, are disappointed by the lack of variety on BookTube. Most videos are created for a target audience women between 15 to 25 years old presenting videos of Young Adult and Chick lit (books representing women in their daily lives using a humorous voice). As Merphy points out: I The main interest in making videos is the proximity and this idea that we can find people with the same hobby as us. They are really talking to the people

4 who will buy the book and not parents or any other relative. It is all about young people explaining their passion to other young people. And that is also the main goal wanted by publishers. Over the last decade, publishers have become more interested in sending books to BookTubers than before. As BookTubers videos have more views (Nine Gorman, previously Les Lectures de Nine, has more than followers and more than views), publishers now see the impact of BookTubers on their sales. They send a free copy of the book, sometimes before the release date, and in exchange ask BookTubers to post a review of it. Free copies can also lead to a kind of distrust from the viewers. A lot of them think that BookTubers cannot give a negative review of a book if it was sent by the publisher. BookTubers reassure their viewers: and insist that their opinions are not influenced by gratuity. Some may give their opinion in a more diplomatic way but finally the result is the same for publishers: the curiosity of viewers is provoked. Even if a BookTuber produces a negative review, it will attract some people who would like to discover the book for themselves. But today, publishers go even further to promote books on YouTube than just sending a free copy: they make videos for the launching of books. Not for all the books but for those with a much higher budget, such as the Phobos project by Collection R, a French publisher. They have contacted BookTubers and asked them if they would like to make videos, professional ones with a team behind them, for the launching of the fourth, and last, book of the Phobos series. The main goal is to make a book trailer, so that people who do not usually read can be attracted to read the book. Your book cover becomes alive. YouTube is not the only sphere where you can promote books; recently, a new one has been created: Bookstagram. You just have to publish on Instagram a picture of a book with elements related to it in the picture. This is also controversial in the sense that even if Bookstagrammers give a little review of the book, is not it more the aesthetic of the book which prevails over the content? Bookstagram is more a shop window than a real place where you can express your opinion on a book. Very few people will read the description under the picture. They will just scroll, see the picture, like it and scroll again to the next picture.

5 WHEN PUBLISHERS TAKE A LOOK AT THE WEB Today, publishers do not contact BookTubers only to talk about their publishing. More and more, they also contact them to publish their books. In France, we can find many examples: Zenith by Sacha Alsberg and Lindsay Cummings, Le pacte d Emma by Nine Gorman, Le souffle de Midas by Alison Germain (aka Lili Bouquine) or also Mon Bullet avec Bulledop written by Bulledop. Most of the time, these BookTubers are chosen because of their popularity on the Internet. It is exactly the same principle with Wattpadd, a platform of writing where ever more writers are published in physical book form. The main advantage: the selling of physical book will be easier. Stories are chosen because of their popularity and their genre (here again most of the time Young Adult stories or Romance). For example, Anna Todd published the After series after her first book on Wattpadd was seen more than times. the story. Readers on platforms such as Wattpadd can put comments below each chapter, giving their own review of what they have just read. This way, publishers can visualize directly what the readers want the most and publish it immediately with less fear of publishing a flop. This raises the question of legitimacy: do publishers release these books for the real story and style of writing or only for the popularity of the author? As we can see, most books published by BookTubers, or people on the Internet, have the same characteristics: most of the time a complicated romance, maybe with a love triangle, where the main male character can be qualified as a bad boy and the main female character who is kind with everyone. But some exceptions exist too such as Zenith, written by Sasha Alsberg and Lindsay Cummings, a science-fiction story which takes place in the future. We can also think that if publishers release this kind of books, it is because there is a large range of readers who want this type of books. However, thanks to BookTubers too, a lot of people want to discover new kind of books, books they are not used to read. Looking for authors on the Internet allows publishers to discover new writers with a readership who already wants to know the end of And yet, there is a sort of fan service coming up: authors do not write anymore for themselves but more for an audience. And it works. When publishers put a little banner around the book saying: more than a million readers on Wattpadd, it arouses curiosity and attracts readers.

6 To attract new and younger readers, publishers do not hesitate to re-edit their old books with new covers or illustrations in the book. This way, they can attract new readers or old fans of the story who want to collect as many books as they can on their shelves here again BookTubers can influence this. But do not forget: special editions do not change the story, they attract new readers to discover it! So now, pick a book and read! Charline Bello & Sarah Binnert

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