Member Reviews

This book is full of helpful advice to help you take better pictures and find your social media niche. You don’t have to go out and buy a lot of new things to take pictures just use what you have and snap away. I like the advice she gives it’s easy to follow and I can also maybe become insta famous or at the very least take better pictures.

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I wanted some ideas to improve the quality of my posts to social media and this book was exactly what I was looking for. Stuffed full of practical advice, I enjoyed this quick read.

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I had seen this book mentioned by a friend online so was really pleased to be offered it to review. As a blogger I rely quite heavily on social media. Instagram is one of my favourite platforms and this book is great for when you are lacking a little inspiration.

It is visually stunning and includes some really great information as well as prompts for helping you think about your own Instagram and what you want it to be. Highly recommended for all bloggers and influencers using Instagram, you will find some fab tips and ideas here.

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A surprisingly beautifully written book which touched on a lot of topics which Instagram enthusiasts, like myself, often wonder about. It also tackled the big issues of finding one's identity and being unique while also being your best creative self, in general, very well!
If you spend even an hour daily on Instagram, then do read this book!

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Whether you're a blogger / instagrammed or influencer you NEED to read this, stripping away the phoniness and keeping things honest and straightforward., Easy to follow.

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This is a stunning book, as someone just starting out in the bookstagram/blogger world, I am very impressed with the knowledge and content available in this book. Very easily accessible and just beautiful. Well done.

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This book is everything I needed to spark a little creativity back into my life. An avid photographer - usually - I had lost my interest in taking photos. Actually that's not accurate. I still snapped shots all the time, I just had no interest in sharing them. Sara's book brought me back to the joy of coming up with an image, setting it up, taking the shot, editing, and putting it out into the world.

It took me awhile to read it, not because it wasn't good but precisely because it was SO GOOD that I had to read a bit and then put it down to absorb it. There was also one day where I fully intended to read for awhile but I became so abruptly inspired that I had to put the book down and head out into the woods with some props and my phone to take what ended up being one of my favourite photos ever.

This is not a full technical book to teach you how to take photos, although she does cover some basics. Mostly it's a book to help you figure out what type of photos YOU love and want to take and share. If it doesn't inspire you I don't know what will.

Aside from the great information and inspiration, the book itself is stunningly beautiful with amazing imagery from Sara herself. It would be the perfect coffee table book except I refuse to leave it out lest someone ruin it by spilling something on it!

Highly recommended.

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Interesting book but short and a lot of the advice is just basic common sense. Pretty to look at but lacks substance.

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What a fun, informative read! It really made me think differently about social media and gave me a chance to do a better job of self-promoting. Instagram was always kind of a mystery to me, so it was good to read about how to brand yourself while not coming across as sort of ahem...self involved? It also serves as a how to for pictures—how to make them more attractive and how to be more engaging online. I enjoyed the stories and found the writing to be engaging. There was a lot about this book that I liked and I will for sure pick up a hard copy!

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Hashtag Authentic was not what I expected it to be. In an era where influencers have no idea what they want to influence people to do other than give them free holidays and things, Sara Tasker lends some gravitas to the art, not asking you to ape other popular Instagrammers, but how to discover things in your own environment worth contemplating. If you need help developing your own style or refreshing your current one, this is a good place to start. The photos are gorgeous too!

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This book is a creative idea. The photos are excellent and inspirational. I like the details given, which were very helpful.

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I found this book much more helpful for Instagram advice and photo composition than Instastyle, a similar book I read last year. The photos are not my style and they do seem pretty staged, dark and commercial, but I enjoyed the author's voice far more than the other's and it did have useful advice.

While I am on IG, I don't use it as a hard core way to make money or influence people but more as a way to preserve moments and connect with like-minded folks -- fellow foragers, homeschooling mothers, gardeners, tinkerers, cooks... For others like myself, books like this may take some of the fun away from it all. For those who want to be "influencers" (oh, how I hate that word), it is likely to be very helpful and inspirational.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for the purpose of review.

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This is a brilliant book full of practical advice on how to live and document your everyday life and how you to share that on Instagram. Sara is a master at explaining the complexities of the, often baffling, world of Instagram in a way that everyone can understand while encouraging you to throw caution to it all and just give it a go! She truly is the Instagram Queen.

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I never heard of Sara Tasker before. That doesn't mean that she is new in this Business. In fact she already has her own podcast, her instagram has about 216K followers and her blog is well known.
Sara Tasker started out as a mother who started a project on Instagram. One photo every day. Since then she got thousands of fans ans grew an online business all by herself.
At the end I couldn't believe that I never heard of her before.

I myself am a photographer and as a creative I try my best to discover new ways of feeling that creativity. There are a lot of books out there to help you but not all of them are pure gold.
This book however is, at least for me.
Hashtag authentic is a mix about Sara and about Instagram (how to) but it´s especially about living the creativity you have inside yourself. Besides #Authentic, #Girlboss would also fit 100%.

I read this book on my kindle but I want it as a physical copy as well. There are lots of photos inside but on the kindle they are all black and white and while that can be beautiful, I want to see how Sara did them.
Also there are to dos inside. Little plays and lists. I think its way easier to switch back and forth on a physical book. The exercises inside (tasks would be the fun word ^^) are very easy to understand and follow but not unimportant. Actually I think that they are very helpful.

I have to mention that Sara Task wrote so lovely, I had the feeling I was talking to a friend rather than a stranger on the internet.

If you are interested in Instagram and how it works, helpful tips and a new way to experience your creativity then this book is absolutely perfect for you.

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Next up on Sophie’s list was Hashtag Authentic by Sara Tasker, the Instagrammer behind the popular me_and_orla account. Sophie wasn’t one of Sara’s followers (although she is now) but had wanted to improve her Instagram feeds (easyqueenie and marnie_salem_and_artemis) – something which Hashtag Authentic promised to help do.

The book is packed full of useful insights into improving your feed, whether you run a commercial Instagram account, one for a specific subject such as your pet or vehicle, or just a mixed bag account showcasing your day-to-day life. Sara advises on how to take great shots no matter what type of camera you own, edit well, use filters effectively, make the most of captions and hashtags, and also how to avoid the app taking over your life. She also guides you through several short exercises designed to help you improve your feed, and steer Instagram’s algorithms toward showing you more content you’ll love.

There’s advice on keeping safe in this book too, both from trolls out to attack you, and from your own inner voice which is probably telling you not to post certain photos. Sara’s comment about how, by posting our own selfies and making sure our bodies appear in our photos, we can help to increase the diversity we long to see online was something that really spoke to Sophie. As was her advice on making sure we don’t try to “please too many people at once” and instead, focus on making something that WE love.

On top of all this, Hashtag Authentic is beautiful to look at. Nearly every page features Sara’s photos from her idyllic looking life in rural Yorkshire and it made Sophie want to take a trip up there immediately. Sophie has been putting Sara’s advice into practice and is already happier with her Instagram accounts which are looking more beautiful than ever thanks to this book.

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It’s kind of brave to write a book dedicated to mastering one app in an era that sees so much technology turnover. I’m general, I found myself thinking this would make a great blog post to allow real time updating. While I’m a devoted Instagram user, I wasn’t familiar with Tasker’s account before stumbling upon this book. While it is aimed at Instagram influencers specifically, it’s a pretty book that contains useful photography advice for anyone who wants to improve her photos. A couple of small bits were already out of date as of the date of publication. For example, the “stories” feature has caught on quickly and the author wasn’t able to dive too deeply into that part due to the publication lag time. I can visualize Instagram influencers showing off this book on carefully curated coffee tables worldwide.

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I found that this book can be helpful and useful if wanting to do more with Instagram. Different ways to find your way to show your images. It is a nice book overall.

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I really enjoyed this book. It is absolutely helpful with my Instagram goals. It's full of prompts and tips and the writer is absolutely amazing with words.

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I received a copy through NetGalley for review.

Hashtag Authentic: Be your best creative self via your Instagram online presence by Sara Tasker,
Is an interesting, guided look to curating the images in your life that inspire you.
She helps break down themes and images, helps you open your mind a bit more to the things around you.
It's less for business, and more for the personal Instagram user.
I feel like creating this kind of imagery is great for people who live in lush interesting settings.
I don't. So I can't really seek out these kind of moments she's able to use around her.

But she offers a nice guide in setting shoots up, compositions, using what's around you, lighting, It more a guide to being an Instagram photographer. If you can curate images that all seem to connect through the same kind of lens and color palette.

I was hoping for more guidance on making Instagram as a platform work more for you, than as a miniature guide for this kind of modern photography, but she does have some very nice points, and guidance.

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An enjoyable and helpful book on how to develop our Instagram profiles. It was difficult to read as an ebook and I would prefer to have a hardback version to refer back to. Useful tips and an interesting look into how to use Instagram to develop you, or a, career.

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