As someone who either listens to music or a Youtube video while I write, I frequently find myself watching authortubers and booktubers. They discuss books, writing and publishing advice and so much more. For people interested in writing and publishing their books, these channels offer a vast amount of advice and entertainment.
Firstly, my list is my own opinion. No one has asked me to write this or rank people in a specific way and I am not affiliated with anyone on this list. A warning: a lot of these content creates swear/curse and talk about mature themes and topics so be aware when checking out their videos. But, I will provide links so you can check them out because I think they’re amazing. Now onto the author/booktubers!
5. Rachel Oates
Rachel Oates isn’t a large part of the authortube area of Youtube, but she does do in-depth book reviews and makes a lot of educational content in regards to bad science and misinformation. It also helps that her videos feature her adorable staffy, Kyra.
Personally, I am in love with her in depth-book reviews and her spoke poetry videos. Her videos are entertaining, informative and raise awareness of how ‘dark romance’ books involve very unhealthy and abusive relationships. Rachel explores the topics that may be triggering with care, with her own experience as a basis for how media can affect people beliefs around said topics. For anyone who includes dark and sensitive topics in their writing, these videos provide an insight on how to handle them and how not to handle them.
Rachel’s spoken poetry is beautiful, it explores many topics that are important to her. In the videos, she is connected to the poems she writes and clearly feels passionate about them.
As someone who is similarly child-free by choice, I appreciate how out-spoken Rachel is about her decisions and highly recommend her pro-choice poem Romb. She’s recently released her own poetry book which I hope to read and review sometime soon.
What I like the most about Rachel is that she isn’t afraid to try new content. While she started her channel reacting to creationists and fundamentalists, she also makes videos on photography and art. Recently, she has started a new shorts series with science-related fun facts. Even if the content isn’t writing or book related, Rachel provides educational content that is entertaining, fun, and still might be helpful depending on what you’re book is about.
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4. Jenna Moreci
Jenna Moreci is probably the most well known authortube channel. I am one of many whose introduction to Youtube’s author space as through Jenna with her advice on tropes and characters. Her list videos are accessible and entertaining, I love her dry wit and sarcastic comments. Plus there’s appearances from her adorable and .
Jenna has a huge backlog of videos on tropes, character arcs and plotting. She also has videos relating to self-publishing which she has done with her Savior’s series. While the advice is not always applicable to everyone, she covers so many parts of writing and publishing that it’s hard not to find something helpful.
One of Jenna’s most recent videos has helped me evaluate my own stories. It was one of many reasons I’ve decided to restructure and rewrite the ending of my most recent manuscript.
Since I’ve been watching Jenna for years, it’s nice to see her find success with her books. I personally enjoyed The Savior’s Champion despite it having a few issues but I haven’t yet managed to continue the series. While some of her advice isn’t suitable for some writers (but when is any advice suitable for everyone?), I’d recommend almost all of her videos. Her videos about self-publishing were helpful when I considered self-publishing my own books. They do not shy away from the time, effort and money that is needed to create a polished, finished book.
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3. Reads with Rachel
I only recently discovered Reads with Rachel but I love her approach to book reviews and authors. Rachel has a no-nonsense approach to book reviews, she gives her honest opinions about books and their authors. While her opinions may seem harsh, she does give reasons for why she doesn’t like aspects of the books she reads and while I might not always agree with her opinions on books I like, I can respect that people have different tastes.
I love her Authors Behaving Badly series. She researches and discusses authors and their lives, ranging from reacting to negatively reviews to crimes. She reviews a lot of indie books which helps me reflect on issues I might not have even noticed with my book.
I love this video in particular as it covers several indie books, along with the ‘if you like x, then you might like this’ type recommendations. On top of that, they cover the specific parts they liked and disliked. If you don’t mind some mild spoilers at times, it’s super helpful.
Rachel’s recommendations and reviews cover very diverse and interesting books, which usually involve themes and characters that are hard to find or under-represented in traditionally-published books.
Some of the best advice I received as a writer was to read widely. It’s important to read within your genre, but reading in general can help you improve regardless. Rachel’s reviews help me discover new books to read that I never would have discovered otherwise as well as pointing out issues with books that the writers might not have even noticed. And if you have a book you’d like her to review or read, she’s open to commissions on ko-fi which is awesome.
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2. Julian Greystoke
Jullian Greystoke is a very small channel, probably the smallest on the list, but they’ve earned my second ranking. Whiel it feels a little creepy to admit, I’ve watched almost every video they’ve posted over the last few months. I just enjoy their videos that much. They have writing-themed tarot readings, in depth read alongs as well as videos relating to asexuality, reactions to writing advice and more.
As a bonus, they also have cats and ferrets that make cute and adorable appearances. I’ve never owned ferrets but they as so adorable in Julian’s videos.
Julian’s in depth read alongs are certainly my favourite. Her read alongs feature chapter by chapter reviews, pointing out inconsistencies, odd word choice and phrasing and characterisation issues. You can play ‘bad book bingo’ with them and they’re a useful ‘what not to do’ resource.
My favourite read along so far is the Lightlark one, even though it isn’t finished as of when I’m writing this. I share the pains and frustrations, knowing with editing and development the book could be far better.
I’m also loving their ‘Men Writing Women’ shorts since it’s great sharing in the ridiculous writing and descriptions of women.
Despite Julian being a smaller Authortube/Booktube creator, they have several self-published books on Amazon. They also post rough drafts of their books on Archive of Our Own and Wattpad, along with some fanfiction. I have found their advice and approach to writing and advice extremely helpful and in some cases invaluable while self-editing my own books and looking at my word choices. I am happy to say I’ve started reading their latest book, Boots. I’m enjoying it so far and I might even post a review when I’m finished.
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1. Kate Cavanaugh Writes
My absolute favourite authortuber right now is Kate Cavanaugh Writes. She funny, relatable and has some really cool videos. Her occasional book reviews (usually classic books) are fun and accompanied by cooking, and she also has some fun travel vlogs. Like many on this list, she has some adorable pets that feature in a lot of her videos.
Some of my favourite videos by Kate include her ‘I Tried Writing Like’ videos. Since I am a Neil Gaiman fan, I easily recommend that video, but she’s also done many other authors like Brandon Sanderson, Stephen King, V.E. Schwab and more. She’s also done more general writing experiments.
Alongside her writing experiments, she also has writing blogs, self set challenges and NaNoWriMo vlogs.
Kate is my number one spot because when I watch her videos, I get the inexplicable urge to split my laptop screen and write along with her. She introduced me to timed writing sprints which was a blessing, and there’s a lovely community when she live streams her own writing sprints. Kate doesn’t shy away from her struggles and worries about writing and publishing. She isn’t afraid to change her process when it doesn’t work for her and I love the experimentation that comes with it.
As well as her wonderful content, it’s comforting to see someone in a similar position, writing several projects and facing the struggles of beta reading and querying. So that, along with the writing inspiration she magically provides, is why she is my number one authortuber.