Literary Gladiators: Season 3 & Other Updates

For those of you that are following me along on my blog, I ask for your forgiveness. I had the great intent of submitting more posts to my blog, including one that remains incomplete. I plan to complete that particular post and I am also planning a collaborate with a former BookTuber that I greatly admire. As to what I have been doing this last month (and perhaps beyond), I have been working on putting together and launching Literary Gladiators. I am working on the uploading of season three and the filming of season four, which is a task in itself, but I am sure that it is going to work out in the end. We are doing such a good job from where we began and we are certainly reaching for the stars. On July 22nd, we reached 100 subscribers, which is a great milestone after being on YouTube for 17 months and part of the BookTube community for about seven. We are celebrating with a giveaway, which will continue until August 25th (I will leave a link at the bottom of this post). As I write this post, we are up to 119 subscribers and have over 4,700 views, in addition to positive interaction with over 200 likes and just four dislikes, as well as multiple comments. We are still a modest channel, but we are definitely moving forward and doing so quickly.

We are currently uploading the third season of episodes, which include 12 traditional episodes and a roundtable where we discuss the works that inspired us to become literary enthusiasts. In addition, we have taken the liberty to film some extras that take the reflection of many other BookTube channels. We are filming wrap-ups, book hauls, book tags, reviews, and other miscellaneous videos that involve us talking about literature. Some of these videos are individual, while others are group responses to different tags. For instance, we filmed the Would You Rather Book Tag as a group and it turned out being a riot! These more casual episodes that do not take on the traditional format are always a thrill and I look forward to filming more of these. At this point in time, we are generally uploading two videos each week: a traditional episode and an extra. The third season is slated to end on August 21st, so we may have just one or two extras until September 3rd, where we plan to upload our first fourth season episode. We have filmed twenty-six episodes and have fourteen that are still being planned, so we are planning an eventful season that will span into June 2016. We also have a special that should coincide with the Summer Olympics being held in Rio de Janeiro.

As I mention in the 100 Subscribers Giveaway video, the most important part about being a member of the BookTube community is that you connect with your fellow members and get something out of the experience. We can have far more than 119 subscribers, but it would mean nothing if it meant we could not connect with them. BookTube is such a great community and they are some of the nicest, enthusiastic, and most encouraging bunch I have ever come across. It is just surreal that we could live in different cities, different states, different countries, and be brought together by a love for books and reading. THAT is the magic of BookTube! We definitely plan to connect much more with the community and some of my fellow participants have expressed interest in filming extras of their own. I will be sharing one such example, where Kelsea responded to me tagging her in the Minimalist Book Tag, where I was tagged by its creator, Shannon from Shannon Rose Reads.

I will leave links below to all of our season three episodes and to some of our extras. I hope you enjoy these and I promise that I will have some new written content up before you know it!

Season 3 Episodes Thus Far

Episode 30- "A Narrative of the Captivity & Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson by Mary Rowlandson
Episode 31- "The Stranger" by Albert Camus
Episode 32- "My Dog Tulip" by J.R. Ackerley
Episode 33- "A Sound of Thunder" by Ray Bradbury
Episode 34- "Rubyfruit Jungle" by Rita Mae Brown
Episode 35- "Wit & Wisdom From Poor Richard's Almanac" by Benjamin Franklin
Works That Inspired Us To Become Literary Enthusiasts
Episode 36- Shakespeare's Sonnets
Episode 37- "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" by William Wordsworth
Episode 38- "Watchmen" by Alan Moore

Some of our Extras

Would You Rather Book Tag- Part 1 (Questions 1-6)
Would You Rather Book Tag- Part 2 (Questions 7-10)
Josh's Cheese Book Tag (Original)
Josh's Barnes & Noble Book Haul July 2015 (ft. Minnie)
Josh's Minimalist Book Tag
Kelsea's Minimalist Book Tag

100 Subscriber Giveaway (Active Until August 25, 2015)

100 SUBSCRIBER GIVEAWAY