How Jalen Saunders blew up on BookTube
“It's almost overwhelming seeing kids and adults who look like me getting into reading because of what I said,” he says.
Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, written by Kate Lindsay and edited by Nick Catucci.
Currently reading: the new Tana French. —Kate
For someone who likes to read, I have a hard time with BookTube. It’s such a passionate, thoughtful space, but it seems to be made up of a lot of the same kind of people talking about a lot of the same kinds of books (and not nearly enough focusing solely on my preferred genre: murder mysteries set in the U.K. and Ireland—but that’s a subject for another newsletter). So when Jalen Saunders showed up in my recommended feed, I couldn’t have clicked faster.
The 26-year-old works as an engineer in construction, but one month ago, he decided to upload his first video to YouTube under the channel name “Lit Vibes With Five.” It was a BookTube newbie tag in which Saunders, who is Black, introduces himself as “your new BookTube cousin.” The feedback was electric.
“Not gonna lie, this video even made me a little emotional,” one commenter wrote. “I’m so glad that you’re here and willing to tackle the issue of stigmatizing reading in the black community. There are so many hobbies and spaces to get involved in and black people deserve to be a part of every single one of them!”
“Hey man as a biker in an M/C I appreciate you for making this channel,” another wrote. “None of my homies read and if I brought up any books I’d read they’d have a field day…”
Saunders says he faced a similar stigma as a teenager, and stopped reading altogether in high school in order to avoid getting bullied. But now he wants to help the next generation of Black teenagers feel free to be themselves. Which is what brought him to YouTube.
“A lot of my friends have come to me and said, ‘Yo, I'm about to get this book that you was talking about,’” he says over Zoom. “Or somebody in the comments would say, ‘My nephew stopped reading because he was getting bullied and I showed him your video and it excited him even more.’ It's almost overwhelming sometimes, seeing kids and adults who look like me getting into reading because of what I said.”
Within his first few weeks on YouTube, Saunders’ channel was plucked up by the algorithm and his subscriber count exploded to over 18,000. His most popular video, “MY FIRST (mini) BOOK HAUL ... EVER,” has over 68,000 views, and the creator says he’s fielding an influx of notifications every day. In this interview, he and I talk about his decision to join YouTube, what it’s been like to become a voice for Black readers, and why romance is his favorite genre.
Did you get into reading because of school, or did you find it on your own?
It was a little bit of both. The Scholastic Book Fair, that was one thing that I had to go to every single time. Whenever they came, I had to make sure I went and asked my mom for some money so I could get a couple books. But I also just read on my own too, like graphic novels pretty much, Captain Underpants and Magic Treehouse. I guess it was really just to get my imagination going.
Was there any one thing or person who introduced you to reading?
I think it was something I just came across in school. My mother's a reader, but I don't think there's one specific person. I think it was just a school thing. And once I started reading, I just fell in love with it.
What inspired you to bring this to the internet? Had you done anything like this before?
No. Not at all. I was talking to my brother and he knows I like to read, and he's a big “if you want to do something, do it like you're already doing it” [person]. So he knew that I liked to read and he was like, “Alright, if you wanna do YouTube or if you wanna do something online, you do what you already do every day.”
And I was like, okay, I don't know if I want to go on YouTube talking about books, but I also looked at it as like, no one that I know really reads. And when I was younger, probably going into high school, I paused on my reading because I wanted to be cool. Nobody read, or nobody read for recreation. When he said that, I felt that I would take it as an opportunity to try and get people that look more like me into reading.
When you see YouTube, you always see people talking about the money you can make from YouTube, and I kind of got stuck in that mindset before I started. And then I just told myself, “That's not what I'm here for. I want to be able to do something that I love to do and share it with other people.” So that was my main focus when I made my first video. And I'm a person who...I'm a perfectionist, to say the least. So when I do something, I expect everything to flourish right away. But when I made these first few videos, that wasn't the case. So that humbled me a little bit, but I said, “That's not what I'm here for.” I just focused on making good content and doing stuff that I love.
Before you joined YouTube, were there people online who you watched and enjoyed?
I didn't watch much YouTube before I started, but I was trying to do some research and see what other people talk about books on YouTube and I came across Jack Edwards. And he was super big. I watched some of his videos and he was hilarious. He was funny. And it kind of just got me in the mood to want to do it even more. And then once you find one BookTuber, you find them all. I just fell into the rabbit hole of watching BookTube and seeing how involved everybody in the community was. Not just the people making the videos, but everyone in the comments and everybody talking amongst each other and things like that.
Men are not very present on BookTube, especially Black men. Was that a motivator for you?
Oh yeah, most definitely. Like I said, none of my close friends or family members really read. So my main thing was to try and get more men, more Black men to read. And what's made me so happy over these past couple weeks is that I've accomplished what I came to do. A lot of my friends have come to me and said, "Yo, I'm about to get this book that you was talking about." Or somebody in the comments would say, "My nephew stopped reading because he was getting bullied and I showed him your video and it excited him even more." People are coming to me and saying, "I love this recommendation, I'm gonna get it for my husband." It's almost overwhelming sometimes, seeing kids and adults who look like me getting into reading because of what I said. That was definitely a big part of why I wanted to start it. I just felt like I was bringing a totally new vibe to BookTube. I got tattoos. I wear jewelry and I dress differently from everybody, so I felt it was needed.
It's interesting you say that your first videos didn't do well. By the time I came to your channel, I think the algorithm had found you. When did things really explode?
So I had three videos up and I did one video per week. And after my third video, I think my first video had about 200, 300 views, my second video had about 400 views, and then I had just posted that third video. So that had about 400, 500 views. And like I said, I was expecting to take off, but I was completely happy with that. It's a marathon, not a sprint. So I had took a trip to Atlanta the next week after I did that video, and I was sitting there one day—and I use like vidIQ and YouTube Studio just to manage everything better—and a thing popped up on the screen and it was, "Shout out to you for your first 5,000 views." And I was like, “What?” So I hurried up and went into my channel. I was like, “Yo, no way.” I started getting a lot of comments and people like, "Oh my God, I'm glad I found you. I'm already in love with this channel. I didn't even watch a video yet and I subscribed." I was like, what is going on? And then from then on out, it never stopped. And I don't know what I did or how I caught the algorithm like that, but it was news to me.
What has that been like? I imagine you get new notifications every day.
Literally every day. I might wake up from my sleep and I have 20 new comments or my subscribers went up 600 or something like that. It's been a little overwhelming to say the least, a good overwhelming though. I've just never been in a position where my voice is so heard. I've been loving it. I like going into comments and liking people's comments and having conversations with everybody in the comments and things like that. So it's been fun and I want to keep it going. And like I said, I'm not in it for the money. I really just love reading and I wanted to connect with people who like reading too.
What is your favorite genre of book to read?
This I feel like is what makes me different. My favorite genre is romance. I love me a good rom-com. I’ve always been a lover boy.
Do you have any all time favorite books? Or is there a recommendation that you've really loved?
I actually got two books that I loved so far that people have recommended to me. One I talked about in my video, which is Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby. That book was electric. I felt like I was in the book and the way he described every scene was amazing. And then the second book, which I just got done reading and I'm gonna do a video on later today, is Seven Days in June by Tia Williams, that's a romance novel. That book was crazy.
What makes a good book to you?
For me, I think it's the structure of the book. And when I say that, I just mean the way they move through the book. One book I just read, it was a good book, but the structure of the book was just kind of off because they were in the present and they went to the past then they were in the future and then went back to the past and it was just—I don't really like structures like that. One of my favorite books that I just read a while ago was First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston. That book has some of the best structure that I think I read in a book in a while. And only because she clearly set out what was the past, what was the present, and she put the past in a way that it intertwines with the present to make you understand what's happening next. So I think structure and really just details, like being able to describe a scene so well that I can picture it in my head or that I'm sitting there and almost feel like I'm in the book or I'm watching the book as a movie, because if I can get in my head during a book, that means the book is really good.
What other videos are you interested in making?
Honestly, this is something that I've been wrestling with myself because I want to listen to the people in my comments. I already have four different types of videos and everybody loves 'em, so I don't want to deviate too much from what I'm already doing, but I also do want to try new things here and there. I see people doing challenges and things like that, so I might try a challenge or I'll go to a store and ask people what their favorite book is and I'll go get it, read it, things like that. But I don't wanna deviate too much and then lose the audience that I have because they were here to watch what I've already been putting out. So I don't wanna change too much.