How to Start a Digital Book Club

Hi friends! I am super excited about today’s blog post. I am going to show you how to start a digital book club! Every bookworm’s dream (probably) is to find a group of like-minded people with whom we can scream about books. Unfortunately, those people usually live far away or in other countries. Luckily a digital book club can solve all those pesky logistical issues. Let’s dive in!

A Dark and Hollow Star Review!

What is a digital book club?

Pretty much what the name suggests. It’s a book club that meets on a digital platform instead of meeting in person. This has many benefits, the first being that people from all over the world can join. There are no logistics to take care of, you can talk about books on any day and at any time. Personally, I really enjoy being in digital book clubs. It gives me a sense of community and helps me connect with people who have similar reading tastes.

Looking to join a digital book club? Check out mine here!

How to start a digital book club

Starting a digital book club might sound a bit daunting, but don’t worry. I got you. This should be a fun experience for you, so don’t stress too much about the final details. We’re all learning as we go along.

Step one: pick a format

Will you be a monthly book club? Weekly? Decide beforehand what your goal is with the book club. For the Read Better Book Club, Mieke and I wanted to talk about books with like-minded people, and we wanted to have informed discussions about what we were reading. The entire format of our book club is based on our goal to “read better“.

Once you’ve decided on a goal, you need to decide on a genre. We don’t limit our genres, but we do focus mainly on fantasy. Personally, I would never join a book club that reads non-fiction because I wouldn’t enjoy it. So make sure to have at least one main genre that you focus on.

Step two: pick a platform

You have to decide where you want to start your book club. It can be on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Discord, Slack, whichever platform you can think of. Each platform has its benefits and drawbacks. I personally use Discord, Instagram, and Twitter for my book club, so I’ll run you through those basics.

It’s super easy to sign up for Discord, and it’s completely free (unlike Slack). After you’ve signed up to Discord you can create a server. This will be your digital book club server. You can completely customize the server (more on that below) and after you’re finished you can invite your friends! Easy as pie.

Step three: setting up your server

There is no right or wrong way to set up a Discord server. When Mieke and I started The Read Better Book Club our server was pretty basic. Only after we watched several YouTube videos on Discord did we expand our server a bit. I’m going to show you how we did it in order to make things easier for you!

Setting up your server is pretty easy. You simply head to your server name, click the arrow, and select “create a channel”.

This is also where you can create a category. As you’ll see from our list below, we have several categories and our channels are organized under each category.

When starting your book club I suggest you create a few basic channels such as a “welcome” channel, an “announcement” channel, and a “general chat” channel. It’s also super important to have a “rules” channel. You want to make your server as safe as possible.

As you can see from the picture above, we have a few extra channels. In our “currently reading” channel we usually talk about books we are reading outside of the monthly book club pick. The “general chat” is usually reserved for asking questions, chatting about life, or just hanging out.

Step four: picking your books

As I said before, it’s up to you to decide if it will be a monthly book club, a weekly one, or a bi-monthly one. We host a monthly book club, which gives everyone plenty of time to read the book o catch up if they’re behind.

We’re mainly a fantasy book club, but sometimes we read other genres. You have to decide how you’ll be picking your monthly read. We usually vote on which genre, and then on which book. That way everyone has at least some say in which book they’re reading.

After we’ve selected a book, we divide the book up into sections and we have a weekly chat for each section. This is what our April section looks like. This is where Discord really stands out for me, as we can have a channel for each weekly chat. This makes it so much easier to navigate the chats. In contrast, to say a group chat on Twitter where there is only one chat for everything, Discord makes it easy to keep your chats organized.

Step five: social media

This comes with the territory, but you’re going to have to have at least one social media account for your book club. This will help people find you, and you can also post announcements and host polls on social media.

We make use of a Twitter and Instagram account, but you only really need one.

Step six: have fun!

As I said, it’s important to have fun. We host game nights and movie nights on our book club discord as well, so there really is no limit to what you can do. There are no rules, so just enjoy the experience.

There you have it, some tips on how to start a digital book club! I hope you’ve enjoyed this post!

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Do you host or belong to a digital book club? Share it with me in the comments!

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