When you are subscribed to many American or English youtubers, then you know you can find them on every social media: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr and SnapChat. But what is also remarkable, is that some of them published their own books. And this number is growing.
Starting in 2014, a few Youtubers published books about their life or other things that they thought would be interesting. For example, The Pointless Book by Alfie Deyes, which already got a second version in March of 2015, and Girl Online by Zoe Sugg. (Buzzfeed, 2015) Today, almost every bigger Youtuber released a book, many of them were really successful, with recordbreaking sales. Girl Online became the fastest-selling book from a debut author. (The Guardian, 2015)
The success of these books is obviously because of the popularity of the authors. Youtubers have many followers on Youtube and other social media. I highly doubt they would be this successful without their social media. As obviously, they use their social media to promote their books, for free. With this they reach millions of potential buyers, so for them it is an easy way to earn some extra money. For example, Zoe Sugg has over 3.8 million followers at Twitter and this is no exception, many Youtubers have a number of followers like this. And it does not stop there as many other Youtubers will tweet about it as well, which will give the books even more positive attention.
If you are interested in the numbers of sales, here are some examples of debut week sales of Youtuber books. (Superfame.com)
- Zoe Sugg – Girl Online : 78109 copies
- Alfie Deyes – The Pointless Book : 15330 copies, The Pointless Book 2: 11939
- Tanya Burr – Love, Tanya : 15117 copies
- Joe Sugg – Username: Evie : 13745 copies
- Marcus Butler – Hello Life! : 6551 copies
Do you follow many Youtubers and have you ever bought a book of them?
References:
http://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2015/oct/14/video-killed-the-book-star-the-rise-of-the-youtuber-author
http://www.buzzfeed.com/tonkagal101/the-ultimate-guide-to-the-youtuber-book-releases-87na#.suppDdLpR8
http://www.vice.com/read/how-are-youtubers-going-to-change-the-publishing-industry-042 http://superfame.com/post/joe-sugg-username-evie-book-sales-charts/
I find it interesting to read that actually a lot of youtubers write their own book and that they’re sold so well. I do follow some youtubers, but never bought a book from them. I do have some friends who bought books.
I think it’s interesting to see how normal people like us, can do a lot of things through social media. Those youtubers also first started with a few followers or even none at all end they ended up writing a book. This shows all the possibilities that we have because of social media.
I agree with the comment above. Social media platforms give the opportunity to an average person to start up sth on their own gather support from others and eventually as mentioned even write a book once they get popular on the web. Nowadays a lot of Youtubers even have this as a professional occupation as they make contracts with brands to promote their products in the videos and in return receive money.
It is interesting the extend to which being a Youtuber became – people follow you and therefore contribute to your income in a way.