Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Nathan Shuherk. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Nathan, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

When I started talking about books on TikTok in the spring of 2021, I really had no idea that I could build an audience. My whole purpose of making videos was as a reading journal that could help me remember what I’d been reading better and to let my friends know which books I would and would not recommend. Rather quickly, my videos started performing well – much better than I had anticipated. After only a month or two, I noticed people rarely ever saw but still craved conversations about nonfiction books. TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube all had established book communities for fiction readers and the sub-grenres (ie romance, fantast, horror, etc.) that many accounts focus on, but there wasn’t really much in the way of nonfiction outside of self-help. So, I just kept talking about trying to recruiter more people to talk about nonfiction.

What I’m most proud of is helping people discover a new passion and throw off some of the stigma that often surrounds the nonfiction genre. People often complain that when they think of nonfiction, they’re thinking about boring, dry textbooks, but the genre is so much more than that. There’s incredible history books that help you understand the present better, beautiful science books that spur people into activism, memoirs to help someone process a topic or trauma, and social science topics to cut through so much of the absolute nonsense that a lot of media is incapable of getting right.

As my TikTok continued to expand, I started to expand as well. Now I’m running a podcast talking about nonfiction books with authors and other book reviewers and influencers. I’m in the process of writing my own book about my life with schizophrenia, and in the future, I really hope to keep spreading my passion for nonfiction as wide as I can. I’m glad I found an early audience, because it really pushed me to make the most of trying to spread a positive message about books and, hopefully, my recommendations have helped people view our complex world a little more clearly.

Nathan, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I create nonfiction book content across social media. I didn’t set out to make it a whole thing, but I’ve found an audience that loves getting recommendations and hearing analysis of all sorts of stories.

I’m not sure I’m all that creative – I mostly think I just have an interest and am okay being pretty vocal about it. Honestly, that’s really all you need to get started in the book influencer space.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Getting established in influencer spaces is probably a fair but of networking, but that’s not really how I think of it. I just made friends with people that share my passion, and now there’s a little community of us that get to create content together, share and promote each other, and often get to have a little laugh at a lot of the behind the scenes stuff that happens in the book world.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Being authentic is definitely the key. People want to follow a person that’s relatable and giving good, honest reviews of books.

A lot of my successful videos have been because I call out parts of the publishing industry and talk openly about the politics of books and media. And a large part of why those videos succeed is because there’s no grift or ulterior motive.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @schizophrenicreads
• Twitter: @schizoreads
• Other: TikTok: @schizophrenicreads Podcast: Schizophrenic Reads (A Nonfiction Book Podcast)

Image Credits
Nathan Shuherk (self)