Do You Bookstagram?

Saturday 8 August 2015


Instagram is an insanely popular social media site (it is a social media site, right? well i'm calling it that) that pretty much every blogger is on. Fashion bloggers, beauty bloggers, food bloggers, and even book bloggers use Instagram to share pictures that relate to their blogs and they have a really good hold on how they use it. I, on the other hand, am still trying to get into the swing of things. Don't worry, this isn't going to be one of those kinds of posts (I've done them before, and I've learned my lesson), I just want to share my experience with Instagram with you lovely Earthlings.

I've had an Instagram account since about 2011/2012 but I didn't start being active on it until about a year or two ago and I mainly post pictures that relate to my daily life (whatever I'm drinking that day, pictures of dogs, the weather, etc.) as well as pictures of books. I follow people that I know from my everyday life, and people from the internet (friends from Tumblr, other bloggers) and of course some famous people too. And while I do follow a lot of book bloggers and like seeing pictures of books in my timeline I really do tend to struggle with being a 'bookstagrammer'.

Why is this? You see, there's one thing that I tend to have a hard time with: consistency. That's both consistency in posting and having a consistent style. I'm not a skilled photographer, I don't even own a DSLR camera. All of my photos are taken on my phone in bright sunlight because I don't even have good enough lighting in my room. Another thing that I tend to find a bit tough when it comes to photography is coming up with a style of my own. Only so many people can take pictures of their books on a pristine white background or on their wood flooring, and coming up with my own style can be kind of daunting because knowing my luck, I'll think of something that's very unique but somebody else will already do it.

Obviously I have a lot of inspirations and I know what aesthetics I like, it's just a matter of figuring out how exactly to do it with the limited resources I have at my disposal. My house is pretty small, the lighting isn't great, and there's not much in the way of nature near to me. Coming up with a style that is unique to you isn't easy, but obviously it pays off in the end.

My final problem with bookstagram is this: I only have one Instagram account and anybody and everybody is welcome to follow me on that. I know quite a few people who have a separate account for their bookish photos, but I just don't want to do that. I don't like having two different accounts on the same website: I have one Twitter, one Tumblr, one Goodreads, and one Instagram because it's much easier for me to manage. However, I don't want people who follow me for my book/blog posts to be bombarded with photos from my personal life just as much as I don't want people who follow me for photos from my personal life to be bombarded with photos of books. Finding a good balance between these things is very important to me and it's something that I'll need to work on.

So tell me, how do you use Instagram? 
Do you have a separate account for personal stuff, 
or do you just keep one account for both things?

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