An avid runner, Kerry Young has been a book influencer since 2019.
Kerry receives many ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies) and posts reviews of the books on her Instagram and Twitter accounts. Kerry also posts her reviews on other websites such as Goodreads, Amazon and Waterstones.
Kerry is also an avid participant in “blog tours” – a process where different influencers each day all post a review of the same book.
It’s a great concept which gives a new book a lot of promotion and helps create a buzz. It also helps tie the book influencer community together.
We sat down with Kerry to learn more about the book blog tours, how she got into becoming a book influencer, and why she prefers Twitter and Instagram.
You can follow Kerry on her instagram account at @kezreadsandruns and on Twitter at @ke33er.
How did your journey into becoming a book influencer start? What took you from reading books, to reading them and posting reviews on social media?
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I got my first ARC back in 2019 as the result of a competition in Cosmopolitan magazine, it was How Do You Like Me Now by Holly Bourne. I loved it and enjoyed writing the review for it but kind of left it at that as I had no clue how to get my sticky mitts on more ARCs or that there was a community of people who would be interested in my musings on books. Then, like with most things that happened around 2020/2021, lockdown was the catalyst for me getting into regular reviewing and bookstagram/booktwitter. Working from home gave me so much more free time (at the time of the first lockdown my client was a five hour round trip away and I was in their office five days a week) and I used that to primarily do two things: start running and majorly increase my reading. To stop me going bankrupt from buying books I Googled ‘free e-books’ one day and it led me to an article that mentioned NetGalley. I couldn’t believe such a thing existed, it felt like (and still does feel like) such an imbalanced transaction that I will get a whole book to read in exchange for me sharing what I thought about it. Once I saw how amazing the online communities were, I was hooked.
You have both an Instagram account and Twitter account where you post your book reviews. Of the two platforms, which do you prefer using and why?
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I much prefer Twitter, I’m better with words than I am with pictures. I don’t feel that I’m creative enough for Instagram really. I see all these gorgeously curated and brilliantly taken pictures and feel a bit overwhelmed by it all. My grid is always a mishmash of pictures taken in the wrong light with no interesting angle. I feel like a nana at a nightclub!
Also, I find it easier to have actual interactions with people on Twitter, real conversations. On Instagram it seems harder to get any sense of meaningful engagement – this is probably due to the fact that I am nowhere near as consistent in posting or interacting on there as I am on Twitter, to be fair. I would say I have made friends on Twitter whereas I feel like I have acquaintances on Instagram.
Since you prefer Twitter for its conversational nature, do you have any tips for engaging with your audience there?
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I think the key is to be consistent and to actually say something – don’t just like posts, share your opinions and ask questions of other posters. Spread the love, do giveaways of books you have enjoyed, it’s a great way to build up relationships and it’s a lovely thing to do…who doesn’t love getting a free book in the post?? I also like to share things that have made me chuckle, whether they are book-related or not. Photos seem to help a lot with engagement, especially if they are of furry animals! My cat, Guinness, is pretty goofy and (as all cats are) often annoying so he gives me lots of material.
Obviously, Tik Tok has taken off for book influencers over the years. Have you never considered adding Tik Tok to the mix?
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Oh my days, if I don’t feel creative enough for Instagram, there’s no way I could consider Tik Tok! It makes me feel ancient, and I know that is purely a bias on my part as I’ve never even looked at the app but I’m fine without it…for now, never say never and all that. I was worried when Twitter changed ownership a lot of people would abandon it and I’d lose my lovely community but thankfully that hasn’t happened.
A lot of your reviews are based on ARCs. Do you ever feel any pressure in regard to posting a review from an ARC, versus posting a review for a book which you have purchased?
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I’m pretty careful with the ARCs that I go for, and won’t agree to reading/reviewing something if it’s in a genre that I know I generally don’t enjoy. I have never felt any direct pressure to give good reviews and I take the position that if I don’t enjoy a book, I won’t post about it any more than I am obligated to (i.e. if it’s from NetGalley, where most of my ARCS come from, I will post the review on there but nowhere else) as I want my content to be positive. I will happily, and maybe annoyingly, shout from the rafters about books I have loved but don’t see the value in sharing a negative review – if I didn’t like a book all that means is that it wasn’t for me, not that it won’t be for other people.
You participate in a lot of blog tours for newly releasing books. Can you explain how that works, and how other bloggers could get involved in that
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I do love a blog tour, I find it really interesting to see what all the other reviewers thought and I like to be a part of boosting a book. I have found all the tour companies that I engage with through social media. They will post either about a specific tour or a link to their website showing all their open tours and you submit a request to be included, agreeing to post a review on a certain date. They will provide a copy of the book (usually an e-book) and sometimes some promotional pictures that you can use in your social media posts. If people want to give it a go, the tours I have used in the past are Love Books Tours, Random Things Tours, and Coffee and Thorn – there are loads of others out there too.
For the reviews you write, do you stick to a traditional format when writing them? Or is each review completely unique?
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Because I’m not a brilliant writer, I guess my reviews are a little similar to each other. I try to always include thought about the story, the character development, the environmental descriptions and the feelings that the book evoked in me. I try really hard to never include spoilers, which can be tough when reviewing thrillers but I don’t want to take that ‘Shut the front door! I never saw that coming!’ moment away from future readers. One of the bits of writing reviews that I find the hardest is how to start, what should the first sentence be. I used to be the same writing essays at school – once I had started I could get into a flow but it could take me ages to decide on the opening line.
What are some books or authors that you feel deserve more attention and why?
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Ooh, this is a tough one. It’s easy to be in your own little bubble and think that authors and books are getting loads of attention because you and your friends are raving about them or vice versa to feel that a book/author you loved is getting overlooked. With that in mind, I feel that no-one I know has read any of the Jenny Cooper books by M R Hall. There are 8 of them (one is a novella) and they are about a coroner, Jenny Cooper, working in Wales. Men often can’t write women very convincingly but M R Hall nails it and the stories are so engrossing – the work of coroners is fascinating.
I always recommend Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra to people, it’s probably the most taut and frightening book I’ve ever read, I don’t think I let out a breath for the first few pages.
Victoria Scott is amazing too, her first book, Patience, is gorgeous and personal. She writes with real heart.
Lastly, maybe not one that deserves more attention (as it got a lot of good reviews and press) but one that a lot of people are put off reading due to its vast size is The Love Songs of W E B Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers. Yes, it’s 800 pages long but the story contained in those 800 pages is epic like nothing else I’ve ever read. There isn’t one unnecessary word in the whole thing.
Thank you so much to Kerry for taking the time to answer these questions. You can follow Kerry on her instagram account at @kezreadsandruns and on Twitter at @ke33er
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Graeme is the founder of Book Notification. Born in Scotland and now living in Canada, his lifelong love of reading began with Enid Blyton. He enjoys spy thrillers, psychological thrillers, light sci-fi, and anything to do with time travel. His favorite book is Replay by Ken Grimwood.