Book* Creator Guild || April 13, 2026 Update
Hello Bookish Creators, there was a lot going on in the last week (or maybe I'm finally catching up to all the news I've been reading 🤪), so this week's Book* Creator guild newsletter is a bit longer. Happy reading! Josefine |
YouTube
Preview snippets
In addition to thumbnails, YouTube started to show preview snippets of the video to help viewers see what the video is actually about (and to reduce the issue of misleading or over-designed thumbnails).
Those snippets are short clips from various moments of your video. YouTube decides which sections of your video to show during that preview.
This is currently still in its experiment stage and not everyone might see this feature yet.
From the YouTube team:
Media kits
If you are part of the YouTube partner program, you have access to the media kit. The media kit can be used to share your channel's interaction and follower data with potential sponsored brands.
As a new feature, the media kit now includes more detailed information about your follower's interests, household income and parental status, giving potential sponsors a better idea of what they could sell via your channel.
You can access your media kit from YouTube Studio on a desktop > Earn > Create resources & tools.
Rearrange images within a carousel
You can now rearrange the individual images of your carousel on Instagram after publishing. Simply press and hold to reorder the images. You can't yet add new images to the carousel after it's published. Maybe soon?
Schedule trial reels
A trial reel is a reel that you can share with users on Instagram that don't follow you yet, and once you are ready, you can expand the reach of the reel to your followers. Starting now, you can schedule them.
Paid subscription?
Meta is experimenting with various paid services on Instagram. Last week, I mentioned clickable links in the caption, but there are also reports about extended stories, downloadable reels, spotlights, and more.
BookTok creators are selling 59 million books a year
Pretty Little Marketers put together an overview of the creator economy on social media, highlighting BookTok (and specifically author Olivie Blake) as an example.
59 million books a year... (wow!). That's how much BookTok is contributing to the book industry. Overall, the creator economy (all of it, not just book related), is worth $100 billion (again, wow!).
But the creator economy is changing. You don't need a huge following to get brand deals anymore. Thanks to all the different social media platforms (Twitch, LinkedIn, TikTok, etc), everybody can find their niche with the type of content they want to produce. And content is no longer polished and only driven by highly influential peoples.
Normies - like you and me - is what people want to see. Sharing their knowledge about recipes, law, finances, and (you guessed it) books. And with that, the options you have to monetize your channel changed as well. Now we see courses, Patreon memberships, affiliate links, giving you options to grow in a way that fits you and your schedule and ambitions.
Instagram Engagement in 2026I found so many interesting articles on that topic, that I wasn't able to summarize it in a short paragraph for this email. So, I put together an entire blog post for you.In that blog post, I share some interesting stats, what the Instagram algorithm values, and give you tips on how to approach your content.
What I am Reading
The Wall is April's Backlist Book Club book. It's a dystopian story. Not SciFi really. A young woman wakes up one morning and realizes there's an invisible wall around her property in the alps.
First I thought that this book might be the inspiration for Under the dome by Stephen King, but it's most definitely not 🤪
What are you reading right now?
Note: I'm using affiliate links. If you purchase a book through my links, I receive a small commission (at no extra cost to you).
Did you check out your YouTube media kit to see what your audience looks like yet? I sure did... lots of SciFi & Fantasy movie fans (go figure).
See you all next week!
Josefine
P.S.: Did you enjoy the newsletter and would like to support me? I don't currently offer any membership options. However, I'd be thrilled if you bought me a coffee (or a book) via Ko-Fi!
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