If you’re a social media savvy reader, there’s a good chance you’ve discovered the world of #bookstagram, a community of book lovers on Instagram. Bookstagram is a bit overwhelming; there are so many readers with such diverse tastes and aesthetics that it’s hard to keep track of your favorite reviewers, book recommendations, and more. Enter Instagram’s private collections feature.
Not only can you save photos on Instagram, but you can also sort your saved photos into collections. This is useful for readers because it reminds you why you saved yet another photo of a book: Did you want to read that book? Did you like the composition of the photo itself? Or did you want to read more of that bookstagrammer’s reading recommendations? Here are some collections that readers should make and utilize on bookstagram:
1. TBR
The most essential Instagram collection for avid readers is a to-read list. You think you’re going to remember the name or author of that book, but you won’t. But you don’t have to if you save books that look interesting into a TBR collection. Plus, it’s handy to whip out your TBR on Instagram as you browse at your local bookstore.
2. Your reading tribe
The second most important Instagram collection for readers is collecting people with similar tastes in books. Some Instagrammers have a great aesthetic, but just because their photos are stunning doesn’t mean that their book recommendations will be relevant to you. This is why I have a collection dedicated to people with similar reading tastes—even if their photos aren’t as amazing as those bookstagrammers with thousands of followers, I know I’ll trust their reviews. Save one of their photos to the collection, and as you can scroll through your collection, click on each person’s handle to check out his or her latest posts.
3. IRL friends
Once you start following a lot of readers, it’s hard to keep track of everyone’s posts. If you follow people you’re friends with in real life, make a collection of them so you can easily find and keep up with them (and what they’re reading).
4. Aesthetic goals
Some bookstagram accounts are just plain gorgeous. There’s no shame in having a collection dedicated to beautiful photos of books and bookshelves, even if they’re not the type of books you enjoy reading.
5. Book publishers
Following book publishers is great for two reasons. The first reason: Upcoming books. Publishers like to talk about the books they’re working on (for obvious reasons), so following them is a great way to see what you want to read next. The second reason: giveaways. Publishers frequently run giveaways, so keeping up with publishers might score you a free book or two.
A caveat: Don’t put every single publisher in your collection; it’s exhausting. Find the imprints that publish books you like and interact with them.
6. Accounts to unfollow after giveaways
Let’s be real. After that giveaway is over, you’d like to unfollow that random cookie sheet company you had to follow to enter a giveaway. But it’s hard keeping track of all those accounts. That’s where the “unfollow” collection helps—you save one of their photos to this collection, clean it out every week or two, and voila! No more following random accounts that don’t add value to your life.
7. Bookstagram challenges
If you’re dedicated to posting regular content about the books you’re reading (or have read), bookstagram challenges are helpful prompts for posting each day. Save a few challenges for the month in your bookstagram challenges collection to stay on top of them; at the end of the month, delete them and replace with new challenges.
8. Local bookstores
If you want to stay up-to-date on your favorite local bookstores’ new arrivals and events, throw them in a collection and check in with them regularly.