Booklr
| Fandom | |
|---|---|
| Name(s): | Booklr |
| Abbreviation(s): | |
| Scope/Focus: | Tumblr accounts about books |
| Date(s): | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Booklr is the community on Tumblr who post about books. They often post bookish photography, aesthetic edits, reviews and general discussion about the latest books.
It reached a peak of popularity in the mid 2010s. It is one of the communities sometimes termed under the umbrella "Bookternet".
Content
Booklrs will post a variety of content. There is no limit in content. They commonly post bookish and artsy photography, such as shelfies (selfie + bookshelf). A photo of a book alongside a pet, such as a cat or a dog is common. Booklr even has a resident ferret, known as Quigley, who has achieved internet fame amongst Booklrs.[1]
Funny and cute text posts are popular, often gaining the most notes.[2] Book reviews are also popular and some will operate their blogs akin to blogs on Wordpress or Blogger, writing meta, features, recommendations and more. To some extent, Booklr an be seen as a hybrid community between the artsy bookish photography found on Bookstagram and the more written content like book reviews, features, recommendations from traditional book blogs.
Some of the more established book fandoms, for example Harry Potter, A Court of Thorns and Roses, The Foxhole Court, will cross over. It is not uncommon to see fannish posts from these fandoms. Booklr often gives the space for more underappreciated and smaller yuletide fandoms to gain notice. The platform by definition is multi-fandom, with various aesthetic edits, or even fanfiction on book fandoms that are rare-to-non-existent. Some of the most popular genres include young adult, fantasy, romance, and science-fiction.
Examples
See a longer list on the Booklr Directory
- books-and-cookies
- magic-in-every-book
- mariethelibrarian
- tilly-and-her-books
- theboywhocriedbooks
- tea-books-lover
- introvertedbookworm24
- readaroundtherosie
- buttermybooks
- audreys-book-nook
- the-book-ferret
Inactive
- ladybookmad (now a published and award-winning poet)
- thebooker (an early and one of the most influential booklrs)
Meaning
Booklr is simply Tumblr's book community. Many treat Booklr with a lot of fondness, as a close-nit community of book lovers:
Anonymous asked: What exactly is booklr?
It’s the Tumblr book community![3]
[aqueenofbabble]
We’re bred from the ritualistic process of an overabundance of reading and half of us are unicorns, a quarter witches and wizards, some insomniacs, coffee addicts and there’s a bunch of cats, puppies and ducks somewhere.[5]
Naming
Booklrs can often be identified by their URLs:
Your url should ideally have something to do with books so that people looking to follow booklrs will click through to check it out. Consider the following words: book, words, pages, read, tome, fiction, story, library, bibliophile… you get the idea. Two common options are including your name (e.g. @immzies-adventures-through-books) which has the added bonus of people remembering what to call you, or pairing books with something you like (e.g. @books-and-cookies). Be as creative as you like but don’t get too stressed over finding the perfect url. You can change it or grow into it in time.[10]
Revive Booklr
In 2016, a number of Booklrs have commented that there appeared to be a decline and growing inactivity. A post was made in by bookavid:
Ive talked to a couple of my friends and theyve all said the same thing: they dont gain as many followers as they used to, the interaction is way down, their dashes are dead, and people dont seem to talk to each other anymore.You guys, im really trying. If youve been following me since 2013 youll know that ive always loved to talk to people. That was pretty much all my tumblr was up until maybe a year ago or so. So what happened? Are you guys even still here? Did so many tumblrs deactivate? Do you even want to talk anymore? Even reaching out and starting conversations doesnt work anymore.
Im really not interested in a book tumblr thats just pictures of books. Im interested in you guys. The interaction. So how do we fix this? Do you even want to fix it? Cause Id love to stay and talk about anything and everything.[11]
The post garnered over 700 notes and inspired multiple revival efforts, including the "Revive Booklr Tag", and the creation of Booklr Infodesk, a listing for Tumblr book blogs and promotion of fan events.
Meta/Further Reading
- Introduction to Booklr: Bookish Tumblrs to Follow on BookRiot (2018)
- The Booklr Creation Guide (2016) by thebookishdragon
- Is book tumblr dying? (2016) by bookavid and others
- Booklr Infodesk
References
- ^ See Quigley on the book ferret
- ^ See The Booklr Creation Guide
- ^ Tumblr post, by @tilly-and-her-books, posted on March 16, 2015
- ^ Tumblr post by @mariethelibrarian, posted on March 16, 2015
- ^ a b Post deleted/not found, available here at tilly-and-her-books
- ^ Tumblr post by @alex-loves-books, posted in 2015
- ^ Tumblr post by @booksturnmugglesintowizards, posted on March 16, 2015
- ^ Tumblr post, by @tea-books-lover, posted on March 16
- ^ Tumblr post by insrgence, posted on August 22, 2015
- ^ From the Booklr Creation Guide, written by thebookishdragon, in 2016
- ^ Original post deleted, available here, posted originally by bookavid