Booksmart !

Books are uniquely portable magic!

They say that; do I believe it? Of Course YES; do you doubt? Definitely NO! If you know me or acquainted with me or well have seen me over social media promoting, reviewing, and READING, pretty much you get the idea!

I love holding the dear work of art of the author in which he/she puts in years in my hands, smelling the pages of dedication, imagination, hard work, and creativity, travelling worlds beyond the non-reader’s imagination. It makes my soul leap with joy *crazy excitement dance*.

For people who go like “OMG, you read so much?” or “What’s with you and BOOKS?” I seriously can’t roll my eyes enough on such people, like did I ask why are you staking that hot guy from Geology department or why are you obsessing over your ex’s new girl choice and how you don’t really use Instagram to share the good life experience, which fortunately isn’t in your fortune and so many nonchalant topics………

Do I care? Do I?
NOPE.    And you get the idea! Reading comes with lot of stereotypes! But if I cared I would be the one behind Facebook pages instead of the Physical wise ones. Another of the huge concern which I felt was leading to the doom are EBooks, pdfs, or EPubs! You could make me choose between old dilapidated Libraries over a 100000000 of eBook, straight up Physical copies. Like how you can’t stand pineapple on pizza, like that I can’t  stand these e-reading materials.*but my paperback gets spoiled in my bag*.

But a lot has change and I really understand when it comes to pace, travelling and taking care of physical copies  tend to make you favor EBooksore. Books come as Paperbacks (affordable), Hardcovers (most expensive), EBooks and Epubs (Boring but very cheap in terms of money) and now Audiobooks (quite trendy, accessible, comfortable). ALSO, Books have wide variety of genres, well and some are even upcoming and trendy. But Nonfiction, Dystopian, Fantasy and classic romance are my favorite. Want to pick up a book, and don’t know where to start?

You could always pick up either Romance or easy Sci-fi. Schedule your reading, don’t read when you are pumped, but when you return from work, school or college. Cause your brain wires reading into stress relief and a happy place. Like home-coming. I remember one summer actually all summers of my naive childhood, how I finished reading all my textbooks for the next year even math (notice my desperation) and the grammar, and started feeling depressed and wasted cause I didn’t have anything to read more. I was always out of pages to read until recently (since 2018), I have turned into Book Hoarder, it gets expensive but I manage somehow.

Speaking of money, Bookstagram is another huge community, where people read, share their favorite reads, current reads, promote upcoming authors, deliver paid reviews participate in Giveaways, tags, buddy reading and Do BUSINESS. It’s been over 11 months (14/4/2020) of my participation in this community and it has shocked me more then excited me! But I am definitely learning! Looking at others gives me so much motivation to read Great Books, and Not just Read for Money!

Few things I have Learnt:

1) There Are So many Authors and People who want to get work done for Free!     Isn’t this very common when it comes to any business (considering the aspect when reading/ writing is money making gimmick)? Most are in search of clout, the others are in search of money, and a very few are helpless in search of a people, from who they want things done for free. And it’s nothing wrong, because I personally gained a lot of experience via writing articles for blogs, reviewing books that turned out to be a great read, writing and reading reviews by fellow readers. Alas, everything has a price.

2) Not every book you receive for free is readable and reviewable!
When you’re new to the community, more precisely- a ‘Baby Bookstagrammer’, the feeling is overwhelming of being asked to review a book. But little do you realize that in the world of reviewing books not every book you receive or get asked to review is of your favorite genre, but it gets better once you really get your hands down in business and accept a few books only to realize you didn’t really enjoy them not cause you dislike the said genre but because the author is a –‘Baby Author’ and then you my friend have shaped into a compatible ‘Teen Bookstagrammer’

3) Reading slumps and Bookstagram FOMO is real!I never knew what it was called when you just couldn’t read, anything you picked up felt cumbersome, and you would just DNF (Did not finish) it, Yup, this condition is called the ‘Reading Slump ‘and its very common around.
Bookstagram FOMO is another toxic fear that arises either from being a long time on bookstagramm or vice versa. It’s when you feel left out or just get anxious over seeing other readers read, visit book fairs, meet authors, win giveaways, participate in read-a-thons, get sponsored, receive bookish gifts, organize huge giveaways, interview well known Authors, click amazing pictures, and so much more. But you tend to grow out of this fright and learn not to compare yourself with the rest and this understanding comes with time you spend on every platform. That being said, this bookish community is immensely supportive and very UPLIFTING as well.

4) Not everyone is here for reading pleasures or to share their reading journey but they are here to Do BUSINESS!

As I said before, for few it’s really a full time Business in this industry, but you’ll find plenty of genuine readers to motivate you, inspires and help you read more and stumble upon great books and abilities about yourself you didn’t realize were hiding deep inside you.

5) Focus on reading, enjoying great Works of Art, and not creating monetized biased content for the Naked eye!

This is an amazing tip to be able to read more, keep engagement on your book blogging platform and enjoy reading to its maximum. People love seeing you read the book they found to be very interesting, the feeling is beyond ecstasy when you connect to a really hyped book or when you read an absolute magic of a book, so focusing more on interesting piece of art of a book and cherishing them is such a GOAL.

6) Only a Few are genuine others are just Bhogus-pogus!
Beware of anyone and anything you commit to, it’s really important to be smart and not get carried away by emails, texts, and proposals from up-coming associations and bookish businesses to hide their main motive and deceive you into committing your valuable work, and no one wants to put in effort in reading and writing when it gets de-valued or stolen and published or uploaded by someone else, claiming to be its sole creator or writer.

Then there is Booktube (Book blogging/reviewing on YouTube), Booktweet (Promoting or sharing reading journey via Twitter), and Book blogging WhatsApp Business… All I want is people to realize that reading is indeed a great habit, we learn from experiences, flaws and success patterns used by others in order to understand what works, at what time, and how it works. Also reading could be a great hobby, like visiting worlds you can’t fathom in your words but Read and Experience them.

Also, if you aren’t still convinced, pick up a book and read. You can thank me later.
Still, if you aren’t a reader; probably you haven’t found and read a good book yet.             So start now!

Only then you’ll realize ‘So many BOOKS so little TIME’.

Written by: Rossy Dourado

Instagram: (rosssy_reads)