#meetthebookstagrammer interview with @booklanguage

For our second show, I was so glad to have Gabi (@booklanguage) join me to talk about being self-employed and how to cope with the challenges that come with it, the secret to her gorgeous book photos and how you can get into photography, and we did touch on books a little too. See below for a summary of our discussion:

Nadia: I think Gabi was one of the first people to follow me when I started The StoryGraph’s Bookstagram account, and once I took a look at her profile, I had to follow back — her photos are absolutely gorgeous. Gabi, herself, is brilliant, and she’s been very supportive of what I’m working on, even giving me an hour of her time for my product research. Thanks for joining me, Gabi. Would you like to say hi?

Gabi: Hello, I’m Gabi Valladares. I started my Bookstagram account a few months ago but I’ve been a photographer and a writer for a long time before that. It’s been really fun to bridge my love for photography and reading all under this one account.

Nadia: You’re currently in Atlanta aren’t you?

Gabi: Yes! And we’re in a heatwave right now. It’s like ninety-five, ninety-six degrees Fahrenheit. But I moved down here about two years ago from Boston. I was up there for about seven years.

Nadia: What brought you to Atlanta and what’s your favourite thing about it?

Gabi: Ooh, good question! My husband and I went to the same college up in Boston and a few years ago, when he had graduated from school, he had a program in Atlanta for his job. He was here for about a year and a half. I was still living in Boston because I was working there, so we just did a little bit of long-distance for a while, and I go visit him. We just didn’t expect to love Atlanta so much. I honestly didn’t really know what to think of it..and we adored it! So after he moved back to Boston and finished up his program, we then moved to Atlanta together. It’s been a really nice two years.

And as for my favourite thing about it — I’m gonna cheat and I’m gonna say two: one is the sense of community here. I had a great community in Boston but I’ve found so many different pockets of communities here it Atlanta that have all been really welcoming. It’s so nice, because making friends as an adult in a new city can be really difficult. And the second is the food. The food scene is wild here, it’s so good. A lot of people think it’s just Southern food but we have a really international cuisine here and it’s really amazing.

Nadia: Yeah, I visited Atlanta once and I want to go back. I really enjoyed the food and the city had a really great vibe to it. So you work for yourself. Can you tell us a little bit more about what you do specifically?

Gabi: It sounds like such a funny millennial thing when I talk through what I do. One is that I work with a lot of small- and medium-sized businesses on photography and marketing. I help them create partnerships with other brands, work with bloggers, writers, photographers, et cetera. I do a lot of social marketing strategies for them, and that’s so fun as I get to do brand shoots. These include product shoots and new restaurant shoots. I’m also working with women who are launching their own businesses. I have so much fun with it.

The other avenue is blogging. I started about nine years ago. I just love to write and I was like: I dunno, people are starting these blog things. I’ll start one. I had moved to Boston and didn’t know anyone, so I thought it was a good use of time. And then brands started reaching out, and I’ve been working with them ever since. I’ve always loved creating content, whether that’s written pieces or photography, and now part of that has actually become work since I’ve been able to generate some revenue. But it’s nice that it’s not full time for me.

Nadia: What was it like taking that leap from being full-time employed to being self-employed?

Gabi: It is super scary because no time ever feels like the right time but for me it also felt like: I need to do this. I knew I wanted to work for myself. I’m a team player, but I’m also a good self-starter, so I was like I can make more and be happier working for myself. I took some time in between moving from Boston to Atlanta and travelled, and that led to an easy transition where I worked remotely for a little bit. Formerly, I was a Director of Social Media at a PR firm and so, during my travels, I shifted out of that position, but I was still remotely supporting them until they brought someone new onboard. I felt really lucky that I didn’t have a: okay, on this one day, you’re done. I started by working for my old company one to two days a week, and then the rest of the time I was working on all of my freelance work.

Nadia: You said it was scary — what was the scariest part to it all?

Gabi: Honestly, I think it’s that you have no guarantee of a pay check. And also that you’re responsible for everything. I left that Director of Social role, which I had a lot of fun in, and that was my one job, but then I moved immediately into having to market myself, doing the client onboarding, the client interface is all me, the accounting, the billing, everything. So that can be really scary and tough. It’s so different to working for someone else. I mean, I have to figure out what my freelance health insurance options are and all of those little things. What tools are you going to use? You have to figure it all out for yourself. Which is why it’s so amazing to have a community that you can run those thoughts and questions by.

Nadia: And how did you find that community?

Gabi: Part of it is the women I work with. Another source is…I don’t want to use the word ‘networking’ because that doesn’t seem right to me, but a lot of people I’ve met from Instagram, and maybe they’ve hired me, or it’s grown into this nice, little network down here in Atlanta. And then also I still have my network in Boston, which is made up of women that I met through events. I used to co-lead a women’s networking group up there, and so a lot of my community came from that.

Nadia: I know ‘networking’ has become a dirty word, but really it’s all about building relationships, right? I think it’s become frowned upon because there’s often a lot of focus on you, as the person being encouraged to network, getting something out of the relationship, instead of focusing on the relationship itself and what it brings to each person involved.

Gabi: Right! And I’ve always been a connector between friends, clients, people I’ve recently met, and so networking, or whatever you want to call it, comes more naturally now than it did previously. When I was in college and our professor would tell us to get out there and go to networking events, I was petrified! It’s crazy to see the difference between how I felt then about it all to how I feel now.

Nadia: What’s the definition of success for you in your business?

Gabi: Success is being happy with what I’m doing but also being able to make a living out of it. I think a lot of times people talk about one without the other. What’s fulfilling you is great, but I also have bills! So, being able to sustain myself doing what I love doing — that’s what I’d call success.

Nadia: Yeah, I have a pretty similar approach with what I’m doing. Okay, let’s talk about photography now. You have some of the most beautiful pictures I’ve seen on Bookstagram. What is your secret?

Gabi: Natural light, one-hundred per cent. I’ve also been shooting for a while. I started back in high school. I’d taken a few classes, and it’s always been a hobby for me. I stuck with it and had little digital cameras over the course of the years. I’ve always been a fan of natural light photography, so for me I get the really light and bright images by shooting near the window, on my bed, having white around as that reflects the light really nicely. It’s funny as I do enjoy those dark, moody, shadowy images too. But it’s just not my personal photography style.

Nadia: How did you get into photography?

Gabi: I feel like I just started taking photos of everything. Do you remember those little iZone cameras? You’d take a shot and then peel out the tiny photo on this strip that looked like a Band-Aid, and I’d bring it everywhere with me. First day of Fifth Grade, I had brought my iZone camera with me to school and I was taking a photo, when someone kicked a soccer ball and it smacked me right in the head and knocked me out. I didn’t bring my camera to a lot of places after that. I was nervous of flying soccer balls. But eventually I did just start taking my camera everywhere and took those classes. And then I realised I could do it for work, which was such a fun realisation.

Nadia: What was your first experience of getting paid to do photography?

Gabi: I can remember the early clients I worked with, which were local spots in Boston that I would frequent. I was so excited but also so nervous. You get into that mindset of: oh my gosh, I don’t know what to charge. What if my camera equipment doesn’t work? All of those little things, but I just had to do it. I work with small brands, but I also work with larger brands like Starbucks, Nespresso, Target, and for those I still doubt myself. They really want to hire me? Are they sure? But you just have to get out of your head for things like that. I have to just trust myself.

Nadia: Do you have any tips for anyone who might feel like they’re in that situation where their fear or doubt in themselves might be holding them back. How did you cope? Was it just a matter of time or were there things you did?

Gabi: I found a community that was open and interested in being transparent. They were okay with sharing their pricing models, because they wanted to support others. There’s two pieces to this: one is being open and supporting others. I believe that everything comes back around to you so I love to support others who are just starting their businesses or are in a similar boat to me in terms of working for themselves.

The other piece of it is to support the wider community. It’s great to help others who are starting out with their pricing because a lot of times they are pricing themselves too low and what that does is bring the rate down for everyone. For example, if I charge $100 for a mini-shoot, it’s not helpful if others with similar experience to me start charging $50 or $25. Not only are they underselling themselves, the price for a mini-shoot will likely go down more widely. You need to find a community that’s open and willing to talk to you about these things.

Nadia: What tips do you have for people who want to get into photography?

Gabi: Just start! Even if you only have a camera on your phone, just start to take photos, because you’ll start to figure out your style. Successful photographers have some element of consistency, but in different ways. For me, it’s natural light. For others it could be how they compose their shots. For some it could be that they only take golden hour sunset images. So, just practise and see what you like. You’ll want to wear out your equipment before you’re ready to move on because if you immediately jump to some $6000 camera, that’ll probably confuse and intimidate you because there’s so many different options at that level. I had a starter DSL for six, seven years, before I upgraded. But at that point, I felt like I’d outgrown the equipment and that I could be taking better images.

Nadia: Thanks for the tips! Are you ready for the quickfire round?

Gabi: Yes, I’m ready.

Nadia: One book at a time or multiple?

Gabi: One book at a time.

Nadia: Mood reader or strict TBR follower?

Gabi: Definitely mood reader.

Nadia: Fiction or non-fiction?

Gabi: Fiction.

Nadia: Print, digital or audio?

Gabi: Print.

Nadia: Favourite light-hearted book?

Gabi: ‘The Proposal’. That was a fun one.

Nadia: Favourite heavy/emotional book?

Gabi: ‘The Great Alone’.

Nadia: Favourite unexpected favourite?

Gabi: I might also ‘The Great Alone’ for that one!

Nadia: All-time favourite book?

Gabi: Oh my god! And old favourite is ‘Franny and Zooey’.

Nadia: If you could have any career in books or publishing, what would you do?

Gabi: My dream is to be a book photographer. How great would that be?

Nadia: Favourite thing to do outside of books or reading?

Gabi: Why is this one the hard one? Umm…I love to just be outside. Walking, biking, et cetera.

Nadia: And now three shoutouts. A book?

Gabi: I just finished ‘When Katie Met Cassidy’ today, so I’ll shout that one out.

Nadia: Did you like it?

Gabi: I did like it. It deals with some difficult elements, most notably new relationships and sexuality, but I thought it was a nice, summer read.

Nadia: A Bookstagram account?

Gabi: There’s so many I want to shout out but one I’ve really been enjoying is Lizzy with @reviews.she.wrote. Her photos are beautiful.

Nadia: Something non-book related?

Gabi: Ooh — anything? Okay, I’ll shout out my favourite Spring coffee because I’m drinking one right now actually. It’s a rosemary iced latte with oat milk.

Nadia: And that wraps up our interview! Thank you so much, Gabi. You have been amazing.

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