How to Start An Online Book Club

HOW TO START AN ONLINE BOOK CLUB

There Are So Many Available Resources Online You Can Start Today

Winter is coming, and it gets harder, sometimes impossible, to leave the house.  Your little one gets sick on book club day and you end up with no one to discuss that 500-page novel with.  This winter why not have the book club come to you--through your computer.  It might be a website group like Yahoo provides, an existing web group,  or through e-mails.  Borders Book store suggest that readers use Gather, the social networking website and offers suggestions for working with that site and the store in their new partnership.  

The First Step: Choosing What Kind of Books

An excellent guide to starting an online book club is Book-Clubs-Resource.com http://www.book-clubs-resource.com/online/rachel.php,  This guide can also help you with the decision as to whether you want the club to be a general  or special interest book club.  Google around at existing online book clubs and reading group blogs and see what other groups are reading.  Oprah.com lists all her past selections and provides reading guides and discussion questions for many of them.  Another extensive list of free reading guides is available here http://The First Step: Choosing What Kind of Books

An excellent guide to starting an online book club is Book-Clubs-Resource.com http://www.book-clubs-resource.com/online/rachel.php,  This guide can also help you with the decision as to whether you want the club to be a general  or special interest book club.  Google around at existing online book clubs and reading group blogs and see what other groups are reading.  Oprah.com lists all her past selections and provides reading guides and discussion questions for many of them.  Another extensive list of free reading guides is available here http://www.readinggroupguides.com/content/index.asp/  

Spreading the Word

Once you have a good notion of what your tone and style and selections will be like, choose your first book and start sending out the invitations.   What other sites do you normally go to?  Any social networking sites are a great place to start.  Any smaller special interest groups like Mac users or scrapbookers might be a good place to start.   Don't forget flesh and blood friends and family.

You might want to use Qlubb.com to send your invitations, and to post your calendar,  notices about club doings, and  book discussion questions, etc.  Have everybody mention it in their blogs.  You might want to use some of the message boards available on the Freebie List http://www.freebielist.com/messageboards.htm.

Keep the Qlubb site or whatever site you are using  current,  and don't get discouraged if there's not must interest at first.  You have to grow a book club.  

Sharing Ground Rules

Share ideas with your new members.  Do they want to avoid expense and stick to only books available in paperback?   What methods do they suggest for selecting what books are read?  Decide on a system.   Pick a leader.  It doesn't have to be the person who started the group.  How will discussion leaders be selected?  Try to involve as many people as possible to make it everyone's group.   

Try to avoid spoilers by making sure people are reading at roughly the same speed,  and no one is giving away any secrets.   Before you post or answer someone's question, read the responses you've missed so you can tell how far everyone has read.  

If All Else Fails

If you decide that setting up a book club is too much responsibility after all, Book-Club-Resources.com provides a list of ready-made ones and you can Google up many more.  

And should you decide you are going to go stir crazy if you don't get out of the house once in a while, Meetup.com will help find a book club near your zipcode at http://bookclub.meetup.com/

The First Step: Choosing What Kind of Books

An excellent guide to starting an online book club is Book-Clubs-Resource.com http://www.book-clubs-resource.com/online/rachel.php,  This guide can also help you with the decision as to whether you want the club to be a general  or special
interest book club.  Google around at existing online book clubs and reading group blogs and see what other groups are reading.  Oprah.com lists all her past selections and provides reading guides and discussion questions for many of them.  Another extensive list of free reading guides is available here http://www.readinggroupguides.com/content/index.asp/  

Spreading the Word

Once you have a good notion of what your tone and style and selections will be like, choose your first book and start sending out the invitations.   What other sites do you normally go to?  Any social networking sites are a great place to start.  Any smaller special interest groups like mac users or scrapbookers might be a good place to start.   Don't forget flesh and blood friends and family.

You might want to use Qlubb.com to send your invitations, and to post your calendar,  notices about club doings, and  book discussion questions, etc.  Have everybody mention it in their blogs.  You might want to use some of the message boards available on the Freebie List http://www.freebielist.com/messageboards.htm.

Keep the Qlubb site or whatever site you are using  current,  and don't get discouraged if there's not must interest at first.  You have to grow a book club.  

Sharing Ground Rules

Share ideas with your new members.  Do they want to avoid expense and stick to only books available in paperback?   What methods do they suggest for selecting what books are read?  Decide on a system.   Pick a leader.  It doesn't have to be the person who started the group.  How will discussion leaders be selected?  Try to involve as many people as possible to make it everyone's group.   

Try to avoid spoilers by making sure people are reading at roughly the same speed,  and no one is giving away any secrets.   Before you post or answer someone's question, read the responses you've missed so you can tell how far everyone has read.  

If All Else Fails

If you decide that setting up a book club is too much responsibility after all, Book-Club-Resources.com provides a list of ready-made ones and you can Google up many more.  

And should you decide you are going to go stir crazy if you don't get out of the house once in a while, Meetup.com will help find a book club near your zipcode at http://bookclub.meetup.com/

Spreading the Word

Once you have a good notion of what your tone and style and selections will be like, choose your first book and start sending out the invitations.   What other sites do you normally go to?  Any social networking sites are a great place to start.  Any smaller special interest groups like mac users or scrapbookers might be a good place to start.   Don't forget flesh and blood friends and family.

You might want to use Qlubb.com to send your invitations, and to post your calendar,  notices about club doings, and  book discussion questions, etc.  Have everybody mention it in their blogs.  You might want to use some of the message boards available on the Freebie List http://www.freebielist.com/messageboards.htm.

Keep the Qlubb site or whatever site you are using  current,  and don't get discouraged if there's not must interest at first.  You have to grow a book club.  

Sharing Ground Rules

Share ideas with your new members.  Do they want to avoid expense and stick to only books available in paperback?   What methods do they suggest for selecting what books are read?  Decide on a system.   Pick a leader.  It doesn't have to be the person who started the group.  How will discussion leaders be selected?  Try to involve as many people as possible to make it everyone's group.   

Try to avoid spoilers by making sure people are reading at roughly the same speed,  and no one is giving away any secrets.   Before you post or answer someone's question, read the responses you've missed so you can tell how far everyone has read.  

If All Else Fails

If you decide that setting up a book club is too much responsibility after all, Book-Club-Resources.com provides a list of ready-made ones and you can Google up many more.  

And should you decide you are going to go stir crazy if you don't get out of the house once in a while, Meetup.com will help find a book club near your zipcode at http://bookclub.meetup.com/