Big Old Book Unhaul | Winter 2024

[@jaimee-kate]

My lukewarm take on Booktube consumerism: If you bought all those books for a video and then ACTUALLY read them, that's great! I don't like when I personally get in a bad habit of buying lots of books and have them sit on my shelf for years, but if you actually read them then no one can fault you imo. I do something similar where I buy a popular book, read it, give it 3 stars, and then put it in a FLL or resell, and it feels good to do that and give someone else a chance to read it for less than full price.

[@jackieguy2341]

I am new to your channel but I just want to say that I really appreciate your candor/“peeks behind the curtain”, both in relation to the strange business of booktube and also regarding your personal development after growing up evangelical. It feels nice to know the person you are watching is thinking about and being honest about those things, and it makes me excited to support your “business” on the internet!

[@PokhrajRoy.]

This is your version of spring cleaning. You’re doing what Mole in ‘The Wind In The Willows’ and I could never do.

[@PokhrajRoy.]

An avalanche of stuff reminds me of ‘Confessions of a Shopaholic’ where the closet door explodes.

[@FromJulieReads]

Love seeing unhauls!! Thanks for bringing up the bookish consumerism - so important to talk about!

[@mildrumpus]

I just did a big unhaul myself last week. Planning on doing another big purge this week. Happy Reading! 😎📚👍

[@WildeBookGarden]

I appreciate your thoughts on the book consumerism thing! and I feel like the budgeting / tax aspect especially is one that I don't see a lot of people reference

[@beckyray6548]

I am not a re-reader so I unhappy almost all of my purchased books. I’m not a content creator so I don’t have a need to reference books. I post my books on FB for my local friends to claim. They love it. Anything unclaimed gets donated.

[@YW2324]

Ya me too. I'm not usually a rerader. I need to read more often 😔

[@heabooktubes]

I always enjoy the discussion of the what and why of letting things go.

[@themusicsnob]

I definitely appreciate hearing you acknowledge the consumerism piece of doing projects that require a bunch of new and popular books in a short period of time 📚 Being privy to people’s reading and buying habits online is kind of a brand new and weird thing and it’s good to pop the bubble of perception versus reality

[@bookslikewhoa]

Thank you 💚

[@thisisabookchannel]

thanks for mentioning the consumerism in booktube. i personally really hate seeing "100+ book haul!!!" videos it's nice to hear acknowledgement that booktube begets book money

[@CLeighB4]

Yes! And that it can be a tax write off. I didn’t even think of that part so it’s just another nice bit of context.

[@jeans4108]

Is it wrong that I kinda wanted you to open the closet door on camera saying, “ I think it’s a good time to talk about consumerism” while the piles fell out 😂😂😂😂😂. ❤

[@bookslikewhoa]

lol if only I had the foresight!

[@YW2324]

That would've been funny

[@k4hdr5]

Thank you for mentioning budgets! I can justify money on any book by saying, “it’s a book!.” But, money is money:)

[@xxELK]

The Stranger Upstairs was a 5 star from me! I was the only one in my book club who liked it😅

[@jonnie7891]

Since your books are a tax write off anyway you could donate them to your local prison system libraries. There are a few parameters regarding what they will accept but for the most part they will take anything.

[@emilyreads5207]

For it to be worth it as a tax write off- you have to donate between $10 or $12 thousand. Every year I think to itemize, and every year my tax preparer says I don’t have enough to matter.

[@Marie45610]

Last year was when I did my big "unhaul", I don't buy a lot of books, so I don't unhaul often. But I gave them all to my local library I think it was around 15 books. I use my library a lot, mostly ebooks, and I don't have a used bookstore close enough to me to take them there for store credit.

[@RoseRamblesYT]

During the rare times I unhaul books (because I rarely buy books), I unhaul books I didn't like or know I'll never read again.

[@AshtheViking]

I find the Johannes Cabal books to be lovely fun audio listens. I never care much about the plot but enjoy the cleverness of the writing and just go along for the ride.

[@sbayles5593]

I liked The Only One Left. Entertaining. I rarely buy books. Lots of libraries out there. I have recently signed up for Kindle Unlimited. Using it for quite a bit for now.

[@tawnyachristensen7310]

I think I may have to do a Spring Clean on my bookshelf as well!

[@GabrielTheMagolorMain]

The book by Adrian Raine, that’s the problem with non fiction textbook like books. There’s so many books I love and appreciate from my college years, but when I went through my shelf so much is outdated. I still kept my absolute favorites, just in the off chance (or never will happen probably lol) I want to look back at the history. But for example I did a lot of studying on the juvenile justice system in my state. But now there’s been so much reform that all my books are outdated. But the irony of those books is I’m more inclined to purchase nonfiction. I’ll read a mystery once. But a nonfiction I want to annotate, highlight, look back on, but then so quickly they become outdated! Thanks for your videos as always, they keep me entertained and thinking, you’re so thoughtful in your analysis. It’s weird cause I always think of you as a top booktuber, but then when I see your subscriber count I am highly dissatisfied by the number of people who aren’t subbing and realizing your considerate reviews and how you look at books. The algorithm is a weird exhausting nightmare I’ve realized. If you happen to see this, I’ve probably asked this a few times, but you know all those historical fictions that go over the days Agatha Christie went missing? Have you read any, and regardless what are your thoughts on those? I’ve searched your channel in the past and couldn’t find anything, I apologize if you’ve already spoken on these. I’m really curious about your opinion on them. I think when you first hear she went missing that’s intriguing, and the Arthur Conan Doyle connection is so fun, I love hearing stories of crossovers from the past, like how Frankenstein was written. However, I think the answer to it all is rather bland (fortunately for Agatha Christie), she was struggling and took a break from life. Maybe she was so creative she left her car like that to make her husband worry, that I can’t answer. I do find it interesting that so many books have come out the past few years about this topic, but I read historical fiction when I want to know about something I don’t know a lot about, this mystery it feels like I do. Anyways, thanks again!

[@paperbacksgalore]

I think I need to do a brutal unhaul soon lol thanks for the inspo

[@lusalma5404]

I am working on The Only One Left on audio right now :) I have been unhauling many of my old books (mostly from pre2010 or D&D related). These days I mostly purchase e-books or via the library due to space and having traveled for work.

[@lyddie465]

omg how did you know i wanted to watch you do an unhaul? perfect!

[@bookslikewhoa]

Yay, thank you!

[@biankatoth1786]

I must be getting very good with chosing what books I read. I didn't need to unhaul anything since the beginning of december. (ok, there were some e-books but I don't count them )

[@amotleyartwkatherine]

"I made it weird." 😊 You didn't. Even though maybe we need a rule that all booktubers have to stock little libraries with there unhauls...😊.

[@joycejarrard6958]

Do you keep some version of a review in your spreadsheets? I am curious how you keep track of so many books for your unhaul videos. I know you have reviews in Goodreads, and I see those. I hope I can document my unread books in some spreadsheets. Mostly I just have lists of books in spreadsheets, such as the 400+ books in the Rory Gilmore book lists.

[@bookslikewhoa]

Aside from ratings, no, I just use Goodreads to jog my memory if need be

[@EP-hm5ue]

Do you sell your books or donate them?

[@abbiel7566]

I recently (and painfully) unhauled The Gentleman’s Gambit by Evie Dunmore. I LOVED the first three books in that series, but this highly anticipated finale fell flat. Such a bummer!

[@bookslikewhoa]

That is a bummer! 😫

[@giantcupofcoffee]

13:05 I do sometimes wonder why booktubers don’t buy ebooks more when there’s a time crunch, especially if they know they don’t usually keep thrillers or whatever long-term. Like I get that kindles are harder on the eyes than their advertising acknowledges but if it’s more about space than the money spent, why not do ebooks for the goodreads list videos?

[@genteelblackhole]

My assumption would be that with physical books, if you don’t want to keep it you can donate / sell it on. Ebooks are non-transferable - once you’ve bought it, your only options are keep or delete.

[@giantcupofcoffee]

@@genteelblackhole But why is that a problem? Ebooks are cheaper than hardcovers so there’s no money lost on a non-transferable digital purchase vs donating a whole full price hardcover.

[@chelsey8737]

​@@giantcupofcoffee I think it's because influencers feel the need to have the things they talk about on hand all the time so a massive part of being a book influencer is having the books and having this massive collection of them. It's a status symbol for how much you can afford to buy and how many free books you get from various sources and also to show off in the background of videos

[@giantcupofcoffee]

@@chelsey8737 I get that…it’s just weird to me when booktubers buy physical copies of books they listened to on audio, show them once, and then unhaul them. And (CPA here) I’m sure Mara knows this, but books can only be deducted as business expenses if they end up featuring significantly in a work product/video. A book that only shows up in a haul for 20 seconds and then is read for 7 hours in personal time (or is never physically read at all)…is not a business expense. I expect that the IRS might eventually crack down on influencer expenses because of stuff like this. You can only deduct the percentage of cost/usage that constitutes work time.

[@bookslikewhoa]

For me, I just cannot bring myself to pay $9.99-12.99 for an ebook, even if the physical book is more. It just doesn't make sense in my brain that an ebook that you technically don't even own costs that much

[@asdfghjklasdfghjkl321]

From my perspective, I don't feel some kind of way because you're a booktuber. I definitely understand where you're coming from, but at the end of the day it's your channel and your money. Sure there's a conversation about consumerism, but since it was also for only a video, and a special video, it's not like it's something you do often anyway. 🤷🏽‍♀️❤️

[@bookslikewhoa]

Yeah, definitely not something I do regularly and not something I'd do again at this scale. But we live and learn

[@tabbycat2497]

Another perspective on buying new books... This is how authors make money.

[@racheldemain1940]

I do wonder if you tubers get time to read the books they get or are sent? I don't get much chance to read the ones i buy and that isn't often!

[@ChristmasJourney]

A week ago I moved to another country. Unhauled over 100 books, many of which I would have otherwise kept :( But I had to be brutal

[@bookslikewhoa]

Ughhhh that is brutal! I hope you can cherish the ones that you get to keep

[@debralavoie9095]

❤

[@blessedtobealive]

Lucky that you decided to dnf Prince of Thorns. I read it all and was very disappointed.

[@sophiecarbone4977]

I would say the Johannes Cabal series definitely declines in plot after the 3rd book and while I LOVE his writing, they get a bit meh near the end of the series I think it’s a strong choice to get rid of them

[@CM-qj2lp]

📚📚

[@feraruandreea2795]

😙

[@CM-qj2lp]

📚📚📚