We were lucky to catch up with Erica, Kristin, Maria recently and have shared our conversation below.
Erica, Kristin, Maria, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
The three of us had worked together at a prominent sports entertainment company in the television industry and always spitball about personal fun projects, but nothing had ever come to fruition. Books N’ Betches podcast is a hobby we continue to do because it brings us joy. When we first began we had no idea how to run a podcast, and with the help of friends, we’ve been able to get better and better as the years have gone by. And we’ll continue to learn as we evolve and grow.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
The idea behind our podcast was spawned during the darkest days of the pandemic. We were sputtering towards the end of summer in 2020 and there was no end in sight for the COVID-19 virus. People were feeling hopeless after months of isolation, social interactions were at an all-time low, and most of us were ushering in a new form of depression. Kristin, Maria, and Erica were in an animated group chat about books they had been reading and joked about how fun it would be for people to witness the chaos that was the group chat. Kristin offhandedly mentioned making a podcast- she had a friend at Royal Fox Studio who had a podcasting suite- Maria agreed, then Erica took the idea and ran with it.
Books N’ Betches podcast was born, with the intention to entertain and entertain they did. As of Dec 31, 2022, Books N’ Betches Podcast has over 301k streams on its episodes, not including the 60k+ views for video episodes on Youtube.
The podcast’s success is one thing (and we’re super proud of that), but the true value of our work comes from the effect on the listeners. Since the beginning of our podcast we’ve garnered so many viewers and listeners that share our love for books and chaos. There’s constant laughter and support. New life long friendships have been made in our community and it’s something we’re extremely proud of and grateful for.|
The number of people who have written in to tell us we are the highlight of their week, how binging our episodes got them through their week, that they look forwards to Tuesdays (when our new episodes drop), how they feel like they found friends in us, is what we’re most proud of. Bringing people joy, happiness, and a bit of laughter was what the podcast was founded on, and it’s something we continue to deliver to our listeners every week.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
Our main and only objective has been laughter. When all was dark, when the world was still reeling, we just wanted to make people laugh again. And while that sentiment fuels us, what truly sets us apart from the rest is our commentary. The non-literary takes on books are unique, as most book podcasts are more analytical in their analysis. We aren’t having in-depth discussions about themes, we’re talking about the logistics of s*x scenes in books, cannibals in national parks, monster erotica, and the most heinous book-to-movie adaptations. We often find ourselves off-topic, arguing, and making fun of each other. We’re not an AP Literature class. We are three friends hanging out, talking casually and candidly about a book we all read. Our listeners stick around because we’re entertaining, not “enlightening”. We have a lot of fun things in store for 2023. We’ve talked about meet and greets, and traveling together, and we have merch on the way.
When will we stop making episodes and content? When it stops being fun. For now, we’re really enjoying brightening people’s days and bringing a little bit of laughter back into the world.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
The podcast was not an initial success, the three of us worked extremely hard to build a following on Instagram where a majority of book content creators live. The aesthetic online at the time was very “bookshelf chic”, and accounts with pictures of beautiful book stacks and bookshelves really flourished. We tried several ways to integrate it into the algorithm but had little success. Around March 2021, Instagram introduced Instagram reels as a means to combat the completion that TikTok posed on their platform. Erica jumped on that, creating a few cringe-worthy videos in an effort to utilize the medium that was being naturally pushed by Instagram, and eventually hit gold. Some of the initial videos hit 200-300k views, taking the Books N’ Betches Instagram from a ~3,000 follower base to 13k+ in a matter of a week. The followers and videos never stopped, still growing steadily every day, now with an 11k TikTok and 2k+ Youtube presence to boot.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/books_n_betches/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/booksnbetches
Image Credits
Professional photographs by Kevin Weed || https://www.kevinweedfilms.com