We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Chrissy Mitchell. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Chrissy below.

Chrissy, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

I’ve always loved to read ever since I was a little girl but as you grow up life gets busy and life gets filled with other things. I was working a job that wasn’t my favorite. I wasn’t feeling challenged or fulfilled and my mental health wasn’t in the best place so I thought about giving reading another shot as an escape and loved it. I’ve always been shy and to myself but I really wanted to start an Instagram account dedicated to my reading journey and sharing the books I was enjoying with others but I was so nervous about putting myself out in that space. I was afraid that no one would like what I would have to say or that it would be a flop. But I was pleasantly surprised that the book community on Instagram is so welcomed and fun. I’ve gotten to connect and be friends with some of the best people in the country. I’ve gotten to read advance reader copies from some of my favorite authors. It’s been so cool being able to create a community of my own and interact with other book lovers every day. If I never put myself out there and made this Instagram account I would have missed out on meeting some of my best friends.

Chrissy, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Howdy friends! I’m Chrissy and I am a book reviewer and content creator based in Texas. I honestly got started posting on Instagram as just a hobby to share the books that I was enjoying with others. I wanted to create a space for readers to come together and share about the books they love no matter what the genre is and let people fully be themselves. I think what I am most proud of is that by showing up online as my authentic self other people feel free to do the same. It’s so fun to go through comments and DMs of people sharing about books they love and asking for recommendations from me. One of my favorite things to do is make personalized book recommendation lists for others that brings me a lot of joy.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I’ve always struggled with thinking that what I had to say didn’t matter or was boring, I’m generally a pretty private person. But putting myself out there online and sharing helped me push back on that belief. I learned that the people who are meant to find you will. If you are nervous about posting your content online just post it because your community will find you and they will love what you put out because they are invested in who you are as a person.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

For building an audience on social media for me personally, it was never about the numbers of how many people followed me what I cared about more was building an engaged community. Something that helped me was figuring out realistically how much a could post every week. Some people post every day others a few times a week. Once you get honest with yourself about how much you can do it takes the pressure off from trying to play catch up with everyone around you. Something else I utilize a lot with Instagram is using stories. I’m usually on there reacting to books as I read them which makes it fun for the audience. I also do polls and have my audience help me pick my next read. I think the more you talk with your audience the more they come to trust you and become invested in what you are doing.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chrissys.library/