Janay Brazier

In 2017 I read 150 books!

In a video on my YouTube channel, linked below, I talk about my top ten reads from last year.

Can you guess any of them before watching it?

What do you think my favourite is?

Click play below to watch:

On Saturday 20th January I was invited along to Stripes YA Showcase event in London. This was my first time attending a book event so I was pretty nervous, especially heading into the city on my own as I hadn't done that before, but I was fine. So I thought I would share with you just what went on at the event and share some of the upcoming releases with you...

I've been putting off writing this blog post for a few days now. The main reason for the delay is because I wasn't sure what to write as my thoughts were pretty jumbled and I going back and forth between feeling angry and feeling upset about the whole situation.

If you're not sure what I'm talking about, then here's the short version of the email I woke up to last Wednesday morning:

• YouTube operate a YouTube Partner Program. Being a part of this is what makes you eligible to earn money from your YouTube videos through advertising. When I started my YouTube channel just over a year ago you had to reach 10,000 views to be a part of the Program.

• On Wednesday, an email was sent out to tell creators that they were raising their requirements to be a part of the Program. You now need to have 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of view time within the past twelve months.

• This means those of us who were previously a part of the partnership will have our memberships terminated if we do not meet these two requirements or reach these thresholds by 20 February.

As soon as I read this I felt as if I had been let go from a job I had fallen in love with.

Now, the first thing I need to say is that losing the chance to monetise my videos does irritate me, because I'd reached the 10,000 views threshold last year and had started to earn a small amount for my videos, but losing this small amount isn't why I'm feeling let down by YouTube.

This change seems to have been brought about because of a recent scandal involving one particular YouTuber (you probably don't need me to name him!) and because of his actions it is now going to be the smaller channels that suffer.

I've said it's not about the money and I know that some people are asking why it seems to matter so much to the smaller creators. In all honesty, it's demotivating and makes you feel as if you're not good enough unless you're already well-established.

If I had written this on Wednesday then this would have probably been where I stopped, not thinking of anything positive to end this post with. However, after seeing the support that smaller creators are having for each other and the strong, positive messages being posted on Twitter, I gave myself some time to think about the situation and what my next steps would be.

So, what is next for my YouTube channel...

Well I didn't just have the word 'create' tattooed on my wrist for no reason!



Even after hearing this news, I was never going to stop making videos. When I started posting my weekly BookTube videos I wasn't making any money from them. It was all about giving something new a go and it was exciting to find something that I enjoyed doing. 

Coming up with new ideas for videos and planning how to put them together makes me happy.

Filming videos has allowed me to grow in confidence.

Editing them has taught me new skills and 

Posting the videos on YouTube has allowed me to make amazing new friends that have the same interests as me, and I've even been able to meet some of them in person.

And speaking of friends, I thought I would share with you five of my favourite BookTubers so that you can check them out and give them some love and support too:

• Emi Bookish
• G-Swizzel Books
• nosaferplace
• Read By Jess
• thatfictionlife

Hi guys! Today I thought I would do a book related post for you all. One of the blogging targets I set myself for 2018 is to start posting more bookish content on here. I get sent quite a few books to review and I can't always get a video filmed to review it, so I end up just posting a short review on GoodReads instead. But this year I want to post more reviews on my blog and share my thoughts more widely.

At the end of 2017 I set myself some reading resolutions for the new year. Twelve resolutions to be exact. I'm really looking forward to being able to tick these challenges off throughout 2018.

Just hit play on the video below to see what my resolutions are...