Blue Fig Press Starting An Independent Book Club

What You Are Going to Need

The essentials

• 1The Linchpin (aka the book club orgnaizer)
• 2Good Readers - Our book clubs are socical events. And there are both people who read the book and family that tag along for dinner and to hang out with the other non readers. Each family who comes has to have one reader.
• 3Good Communications- We use a web page and emails to get things coordinated mostly but phones are helpful in the process.
• 4Host and Logistics- We have voluntary rotating hosts and hostesses for our club and we have had picnics at outdoor venues so having poeple who are willing to open their homes is a good thing to have for a book club.
• 5Feedback loop- People have to be able voice how things are going or it is going to fall apart.
• 6Good books and a good selection process.
• 7Friendship, respect and celebration. Our book club holds together because we have strong bonds between the members and we have a lovely potluck dinner or picnic with every book club. These pot luck dinners are very good because everyone is generous and works hard on the menu. They are celebrations of our friendship and they always make up for a book that flops.

Some of the Linchpin's Tasks

(for sure not all of them)

• 1Collector and Screener of Potential Books.
  
  This is the fun part this may be what makes this worth doing. You have to find good books, you have to hunt for them and bring them to your club. This means you get to have several small conversation about books with your friend between the big events. You get to talk to others about what they are reading , what you have read. Since you are selecting the book or a short list of books to be decided from you will have the task of knowing what your friends are going to like, what they will tolerate and what will lead to a good conversation. You are going to have to read a lot of books if you want to lead the book club, but why be in a book club if you do not want to read a lot of books and talk about them?
• 2Hearder of Cats- Finding a place and a time and a quorum
  
  The sad irony of poeple who read a lot is that the are busy, and often do not realize to talk with poeple that they have to decide to be at a certain place at a certain time. Joking aside if you are a bad at organizing than you have to work on your skills if you want to run a book club. You are not going to get 100% turnout each and everytime, you are going to run into poeple who see themselves are readers who do not read. You are going to have to find a compromise time for the book club that fits the greatest good for those in the club and fits the need of the host.
  
  I target the easy to organize first. Then shoot for the rest. Talk to the poeple who have calenders and organize their time first and get the dates they have available. Then find a date with a quorum. Live with a quorum. Live with a date compromise that works out for the most key poeple in your group.
  
  I also have the book club 2 to 4 time a year. We read great books and with busy lives we just can't get together more frequently for book discusions. So I plan months ahead. Two or three month lead time makes things easier to plan. It allows for a varing complexiy of books.
  
  You are going to have to slowly remove poeple who pose as readers out of the club, they are poeple who are just going to take and not add to the discussions. This is differnent from family who tags along and do not read the book because they can do thier own thing when the book discussion starts.
  
  I take the show must go on attitude unless the host has a reason to cancel. (though this has never happened.)
  
  I allow poeple who hate a book to bow out and I never expect 100 % of the poeple in the club to commit. (although once or twice everyone can make it.).
• 3Coordinator of Festivities
  
  You have the role of finding a host or host yourself. This means you are going to organize a party at someone elses house. The main things you need is a date, a start time for coming, a start time for discussion of the book and a start time for dinner. We have a pot luck which I have to coordinate, we have great dinners so it take coordination to get a good menu.
• 4Get and Use Feedback
  
  There are going to be things that do not go as you expect. Feedback will come back to you and you have to look at it and determine if you are going to itegrate it into your book club.
• 5The one who starts and finishes.
  
  You are going to have to start and get things going and get the final schedule set up again and again.
  
  You are going to have to generate the questions and select the books that are going to be read or considered.
  
  You are going to be the enlightened dictator of the book club from time to time and you are going to have reliquish power from time to time. You are going to be forced to make the bulk of the choices for the club and you are going to have to adapt when poeple balks at your decisions.
  
  You are going to have to call and talk to everyone about books.
  
  You are going to send out the emails and set up the web page (which is easy on Squidoo.)

Communication Tips

• 1Keep your friends private info private.
• 2Short Listing:
  
  I send a short list out with possible dates and books to select from Via email (email is better than a web page for this)
  
  The first thing you need after you have good people is a book. Short listing or selecting a book needs to be completed so you have a reason for poeple to have time to invest in a date. A short list for a book club is a more is less affair, select 2 or 3 books for your short list, otherwise no one get back to you. At times I have a very short list with a single book especially for the summer when poeple can not be bothered to make a choice because life is to hectic.
  
  To generate a short list you need to read books. It is good to ask your friends via email and via phone what they are reading and why they like certain books that are good. One friend has suggested two of our ten books and they killed at the book club, long beautiful conversations and great reads. You get the pulse of what people in the group like and that makes all the difference.
  
  I discuss dates with the core people before I give a short list of dates out just so I have a feel if we can get a quorum.
  
  Then an email with the possible dates, title and author of the book, audio book availabity and quality, descriptions of content go out for the short list. I usally get about 50% of the poeple to respond and I call the rest once the info is out there.
  
  You will have to learn how to describe a book too. And find hooks that will get your friend ready to read.
• 3Once the book is selected. I send out an email :
  With the book selected.
  The date ~ this email goes out about 1 to 2 months before the book club meeting
  I decide if I am going to host ~ 25 % of the time I do or I ask all the club members via for a volunteer. Justice prevails and we seem to have a very fair rotation.
• 4Once there is a host I build a web page with details of where (no address just the host first name) A list of attendees first names, a list of what food people are bringing.
  I write then about the book, the author, the sections we are reading (if we are not reading the whole book).
  I include a web links to the author and amazon links to the book itself.
  I note if I listend to an audio version.
  I generate a list of question for the book.
  Below are example web pages.
• 5I then send out logistic emails about every two weeks with updates on food, where the web page is In this email I include
  the date, address and contact info for the host.
  The book title and author and a list of questions.
  
  During this period people begin to formulate what they are going to bring so we have a menu.
• 6I update the web page as new info comes in and I send out a final email about a week before the meeting with the final logistics.