#52 – BookTuber Hailey Hughes

Summary

In this conversation, Adam and Ste chat with Haley Hughes, a YouTuber with over 26,000 subscribers, about her experience with book influencing and creating content. They discuss how Haley discovered Hardcover, her background in mental health, her love for character-focused books, and the challenges of setting boundaries with her community. Haley shares advice for aspiring content creators and emphasizes the importance of staying true to your passions. Hailey discusses her negative experience with Goodreads and the lack of support she received after being attacked by an author and his followers. She highlights the importance of platform values and the need for platforms to take a stand against harassment and abuse. Hailey also shares her ideas for features she would like to see on book platforms, such as a blend of profiles to compare reading tastes and a tool to find book availability and prices. She mentions her upcoming read-a-thon and invites viewers to join her book club on Patreon.

Takeaways

Stay true to your passions and don’t let trends dictate your content
Setting boundaries with your community is important for maintaining a healthy online presence
Consistency is key in content creation, but allow yourself flexibility to create in the moment
Building a genuine connection with your audience is more valuable than commercializing your content Platforms should take a stand against harassment and abuse and prioritize the safety and well-being of their users.
The values of a platform and the team behind it can greatly impact the user experience.
Features like comparing reading tastes and finding book availability and prices would enhance the user experience on book platforms.
Hailey’s upcoming read-a-thon and book club on Patreon offer opportunities for engagement and community building.

Sound Bites

“I was baffled why there wasn’t a competitor that I had really heard about. I had switched over to Storygraph, but doesn’t have the same community feel as Goodreads does. So I was looking for something with some more of that.”
“Hardcover has like a really good balance of everything. It was so easy to navigate. I like that it’s like a dark theme. That’s just very much my preference is like the dark mode of all of my apps.”
“The philosophy that I have is like the people who will click with my practice will find me. And when the people who are supposed to find me, find me, it doesn’t really feel like work.”
“The platform is kind of failing me at this point.”
“Goodreads was just a shit show and continued to be a shit show.”
“Goodreads is not the end all be all there are other options out there.”