On this Africa Day, I am remembering the past month where I took part in the inaugural Afrocentric April Booksta Tour. This was my first tour and I was so excited to be invited that I quickly signed up without knowing fully what it would all entail.
The tour was created and hosted by Vee of @wordsbyvee as a way to highlight African books and authors that aren’t spoken about and appear mostly on our beloved #bookstagram feeds.
I signed up for about 17 days out of the full month of April and had a hell of a good time while at it! I learnt about so many African authored books from different bookstagrammers across the entire world, and about authors that I wouldn’t have otherwise known about.
The first day was introductions day and one had to introduce themselves and tell everyone about who they are and what their native name means. See my post here. This tour has really made me think out the box in terms of the content I want to put out. In some instances, I had to post daily as I normally have a certain look and feel and I wanted to keep to it. The people of the Insta streets call it aesthetics – I would like to believe I did a pretty good job having to keep up with daily posts and still maintain that aesthetic.
I created a highlight of the whole tour and my posts on my stories which will always be there. So you can check it out here.
The bookstagram community has most definitely exposed me to new friendships, new kinds of reads and to new ways of thinking of sharing our love for books. Collaborating with other people has really expanded my view of the world and my chosen community.
The hashtag has really grown a life of its own now, and next year is definitely going to be bigger and better. Remember to check out the hashtag if you’re searching for new bookstagrammers to follow – or discover new books to add onto your own book collection.
