Exclusive Interview
Drama King Books on Building His Bookstagram Kingdom & Falling in Love With Reading Again
BookTok and Bookstagram have become juggernauts of recommendations and opinions, especially in the romance arena. Amid the thousands of book influencers, one has emerged like a ray of sunshine: Drama King Books.
Over the past year, Drama King Books (whose real name is Seth) has quickly become one of the book influencers readers flock to on social media. With that effervescent smile, Drama King Books elevates and celebrates the romance community with each post. He knows that discourse is an aspect of the book community, but he wants to focus solely on positivity and use his platform to support authors and his growing community.
Drama King Books’ first real entry point into romance was YA romance, which he discovered after graduating college. “It’s partially because growing up queer, we didn’t have those stories. In high school, I didn’t have those queer stories,” he said.
He soon discovered books like Autoboyography by Christina Lauren and I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson. “Books that had romance subplots or romance main plots, but they were all YA and pretty much all exclusively queer stories. That’s when I really started reading romance. But it started as YA, and it was kind of like a healing journey,” he told Swooon.
Once he read Emily Henry‘s books, everything changed. His love for romance took on a new life. In just over a year, Drama King Books has become one of the shining new stars of the book influencer community and made Swooon’s first-ever Rom-Com Royalty list.
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After meeting Drama King Books for the first time at New York Comic Con, a chance encounter after seeing him at the convention on Instagram, he felt like an instant friend. Someone you can talk to about anything, but hopefully, it’s about romance. Just like the pages of his favorite romances, Drama King Books is passionate about what he reads. For him, it’s all about connecting with fellow readers. (Get him started on How to End a Love Story. He thinks Glen Powell would make a good Grant, and we don’t disagree.)
As part of Swooon’s Influenced 2024 series, we spoke with Drama King Books about the origin story of his book influencing career, why he’s adamant he doesn’t want his content to “ever feel like a job,” and Emily Henry, of course.
The following was edited for length.
How did your book influencer career start?
Drama King Books: During the pandemic, I started collecting vinyl, and then in 2021, I started posting on VinylTok. I still post on there occasionally, but I did that for a while and grew a sizable following and made a lot of friends. Somewhere in the last two years, I kind of rediscovered my love of reading, and I started channeling the same energy I did into posting about music content into posting about books somewhere around a year ago. I’ve always had a love of reading. I studied English and theater in college. I’ve always read until, really, the pandemic, which is weird, because I feel like so many people started reading then. It’s because I used to work freelance and theater. Around September [of 2023], I had read a couple books that year, but to be very honest, I read one book called by called Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross, but then I read the entirety of Emily Henry’s canon that she had released because someone said, “I think you’d like her. You should read Beach Read,” and then I did. And then I read People We Meet on Vacation, Book Lovers, Happy Place. And it was in that time that I started posting. It was with those books.
What’s been the biggest challenge as a book influencer?
Drama King Books: Honestly, it’s the pressure of posting and feeling the need to post. Do I have to post everything, including the negative? It’s asking myself those questions and what I want my page to be. That’s actually the hardest part, is that wrestling within myself because some people don’t care and some people do care. It’s just all up to the person. I’ve decided that I’m not posting any negative reviews. It’s not that I don’t like books. Like, there are books that I’ve read that I do not enjoy, but it’s just not what I want to funnel my time into.
Has there been a moment with a fan of yours that has really touched you?
Drama King Books: It was at Comic Con, and it wasn’t someone attending Comic Con. She was working Comic Con. She was the one scanning badges, and I walked up and got my badge and she was like, “Oh my God, you’re Seth. You’re Drama King Books.” And I was like, “Yeah, I am.” She said, “I love your content so much.” She basically said something to the tune of, I got back into reading because of you. I had not read, and it’s your account that brought me back to books and reading and finding a love of reading again. That was really special to me because it was so sweet, and it felt so sincere and genuine. Some people just don’t know where to start or don’t know what book and finding an account like mine helped. That was really touching because it was unexpected.
Where do you envision Drama King Books going from here?
Drama King Books: I’m just going to keep doing what I do, post what I want to post, post the reviews, post about what I like, post the books I’m excited for coming out, and just let it kind of take me as it goes. I learned a long time ago with my vinyl content, I’m happy to do paid opportunities. I’m happy to support different brands and see where things go, but I’m going to let it come as it feels natural because I don’t want to lose my love for the posting and talking with people about books. I know for me, specifically, if I get so enamored with all the brand deals and all the things, then I will stop wanting to post because it becomes a job, and I don’t want it to ever feel like a job. For me, it’s truly something that is fun and joyful, and I want it to stay that way, but I also want to continue to commune, to grow the community I have, and meet more people and make new relationships.
How did you come up with Drama King Books? Where there any other names that you toyed with?
Drama King Books: My vinyl count is Drama King Vinyl, so then Drama King Books made sense. Drama King was my AOL username back in the day. It’s been the thing I use forever. I’ve always used variations of the username. Also, my degree is in theater, I did theater for a long time, so it just made sense.
How are you feeling about Emily Henry’s new book?
Drama King Books: Great Big Beautiful Life is my most anticipated book for next year. She’s my favorite author, and after reading what it’s about, I really feel like it’s going to be something super different from what we had before.
What is your favorite romance or rom com movie or show of 2024?
Drama King Books: I’m not going to lie to you. I don’t watch that many. I’m not a film or TV person, I have to watch it for work or something. I did love Wicked, and it’s not like a romance, but there is a big romantic subplot, and there is a love triangle.
What is your favorite romance novel of the year?
Drama King Books: It’s such a hard question. It’s between two, but the number one has to be How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang. I talk about it all the time. I think it does a great job of circumventing tropes but also still being a great romance. It’s heartfelt, it’s funny, but it’s also realistic and sad. It has everything I love in a romance. And then the other one is A Novel Love Story by Ashley Poston.
What is the best love song of 2024?
Drama King Books: Let’s do “eternal sunshine” because I feel like everyone will expect a Taylor song. Tortured Poets isn’t really a love album, and the two true love songs “Alchemy” and “So High School” I do not think are the best love songs this year… But I loved “But Daddy I Love Him” and “Down Bad.” Oh, and I can’t forget “Don’t Forget Me” by Maggie Rogers.
Who had the best book chemistry of 2024?
Drama King Books: Honestly, I thought Daphne and Miles [from Funny Story] had really good chemistry.
What makes you swoon?
Drama King Books: I think it’s remembering things, like coffee orders. It’s not the big things, it’s little things. It’s saying, “I’ve been needing to pick up that book,” and then a week later, the book is in my hand, stuff like that.
Who is an influencer you admire?
Drama King Books: One that I really love is @serareadthat. She does fantasy romance. She reads across genre, but she has a great platform. She reads a lot of books and talks about them very eloquently, but she also does a really good job on her platform of talking about other places to get books that are not Amazon but supporting local stores, supporting Black owned bookstores, supporting BIPOC books. She does a great job of really buttressing the community that she’s around and lives in, along with talking about books. She always makes her stance on things very clear, and I admire her so much for that.
