Welp. I decided to become a BookTuber . . . ? Wait. Is that . . . a potato with words printed on it? That can’t be a thing? Is that what they’re called? I mean, there are lots of people out there on these here internets who are recording videos of themselves talking about books, and I would like to be one of them! But on the YouTube, because the Tiktoks alarm me. So I will be. Starting . . . tomorrow.

I love to see reading lists, I love to see BookToks and YouTube videos about books, especially if they’re just nice little lists like, Five Books to Get to Know Me, Best Books of 2024 So Far, I Read That Book Everyone’s Talking About. But I have a couple of pet peeves. Maybe three. One: Booktoks that cut off before they even tell you all the titles, so that you’ll try and find Part Two. Two: YouTube videos that are over 30 minutes long. ESPECIALLY when they only talk about like, 5 books. There is a very sweet young man whose BookTubes I watch, but I have never watched one without skipping ahead because GOOD NIGHT but they are always so long! Like an hour! And in the end he has only ever talked about five books! FIVE BOOKS AN HOUR?! My goodman, I can talk about five books in thirty seconds! What are you DOING?! Also, and I say this with love but also as my Pet Peeve Number Three: Talk. About. Other. Books. The last three videos from that sweet young man have featured the same books, despite the different categories! And I literally can’t tell most Booktoks apart, because they’re all the same books! All. The. Same.

Also, I used to love doing my newsletter, Jessica Recommends . . . But it was more like I loved the IDEA of my newsletter. I hated writing it. I always felt like I needed to write some totally introspective thing, and lead in for several paragraphs about, “here’s why I need to give you a list of favorite dragon books.” And I tried to make it a Top Ten List in every category (picture books, middle grade, YA, adult) and for every theme. It was exhausting. But I would go into it all bright eyed. I’d have a handful of my favorite dragon/witch/Christmas books right there at hand. But then it would just sort of balloon when I sat down to write the darn thing! And I hated plugging it in to the template for the newsletter. Most of the time I made my husband do it, and he hated it as much as I did.

So I thought, What if I just . . . talked about a handful of books I wanted to talk about? What if I just turned a camera on record and just talked for a few minutes? More than five, less than thirty? Held up my top titles, no matter how many, in a category? I don’t want fancy title cards. I don’t want to edit. I don’t want to dress up . . . I mean, yeah, I’ll wear make up because I do every day. I’m not a monster. But most of the time, in my office, I’m wearing my office clothes, which consist almost entirely of book themed t-shirts. So why not? Why not let y’all see my many Out of Print tees?

So here we are. I’ve had a YouTube channel for years. Did you even know?! I posted some videos of Pandemic Q&As I did. I posted clips from times I was on the news. And now I’m going to be posting videos of my talking about books! I’m going to bring back some favorite topics from the newsletters of yore. I’m going to talk about What I’m Reading Right Now at the beginning. And I solemnly swear that I will always keep it short. Fairly. My first one is ready to go, and it’s about 26 minutes long. But I do also explain what I’m doing, and sort of get a little distracted there at the beginning. It’s fun! It’s unscripted! It’s off the cuff! I might show off my office a bit, talk about what books I keep around me while I work! Endless possibilities!

So that’s the haps, peeps! Please Like and Subscribe and all those things! I’m pretty sure you can find me if you just look for Jessica Day George, but my handle is officially Jessicadaygeorge1668

Come and find me on YouTube! We’ll have fun! I’ll take topic suggestions! I’ll take book recommendations! I’ll answer questions!