How to Build a Successful Book Club
By Eva Pohler
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011
This e-guide is free and may be shared with or distributed to anyone.
Introduction
I am the co-founder of a book club that has been meeting now for several years, and I have to say it is one of the bright spots of my life. I so look forward to getting together with my friends, sharing a meal, catching up with one another’s lives, and discussing a good book. I also look forward to discovering what new book we will all be reading and sharing in the following months.
I am surprised, however, when I mention my book club to other people, by how many have once belonged to a book club that, for some reason or other, fizzled out. I’ve heard a number of complaints, such as, “The members took the discussions too seriously,” or “The members never really talked about the book,” or “I couldn’t always find time to finish reading by our meeting date.” I have prepared this free e-guide with the hope of helping others start a successful book club so that they, too, can experience the pure joys my friends and I have shared over the years.
Chapter One: Membership
When my co-founder, Tammy Gray, recommended that we be selective in whom we invited to join our club, I objected. I wanted to invite anyone and everyone who might be interested. But, thankfully, she got her way (as she usually does), and we were selective. This proved to be a crucial decision to the longevity of our club.
You should create a list of criteria and firmly stick to it. For example, Tammy and I decided that we should not include people who would have to bring babies or young children to the meetings. This was hard to do, since we are both mothers, but we knew that meetings with children would not provide us with the break we were looking for from the hustle and bustle of our own domestic lives, and so, with cold hearts, we scratched off the people on our list of prospective members who had young children and could not find childcare.
We also chose people we knew were reliable. If you have friends and acquaintances who frequently break their plans with you, scratch these folks off the list. Your club will crumble if you have flighty members who are indecisive and feel little guilt if they back out at the last minute. Choose people you can depend on to be there when they say they will be there. This doesn’t mean you can’t include the friend who once canceled on you because she had to take her child to the emergency room. Most of you know the difference between friends who have occasionally canceled for legitimate reasons and those who cancel for any little thing, as though they were never really sure they wanted to go with you in the first place. Be friends with the latter, if you like, but don’t invite them into your club.
The most important criterion must be that the prospective member be a lover of books. You must find people that read regularly. If you know someone who hasn’t picked up a book in years, don’t be eager to put that person on your list. There is a vast difference between people who say they wished they had time to read and people who find time to read. Book lovers take their books with them to their kids’ baseball practice or dance lesson, they read while they are waiting in line at the motor bank, they read late at night when everyone else is asleep (even if only a few pages before sleep overpowers them), and they often listen to books while driving or exercising. True book lovers find a way, and these are the people you want in your club.
Here’s a test you can do to discern the true book lovers from the not-so-true ones: Before you start your club, try suggesting a really good, but long, book to prospective members, such as Ken Follett’s Pillar’s of the Earth. If someone comments that a book is too long, then you know that person is not a true book lover. People who really love books love stories that keep them engaged for several days.
Finally, don’t limit yourself to your very best friends. If you have acquaintances that seem reliable--for example, they never miss the soccer game in which both your children play--and, if they seem friendly, and you’d like to get to know them better, and, most importantly, they almost always seem to have a book in their hands, invite them. You will become best friends as the years go by.
You may have other criteria that are important to you, such as age and gender. Our club consists of all women roughly close in age--thirties through fifties. We started with one older woman, but she dropped out, perhaps not feeling the same connection with people who were at a different stage in their lives.
Once you decide on the kind of members you want in your club, you must next decide on how many. We have twelve members in our group, which works perfectly for us. You don’t want too small a club, nor do you want too large. You should expect an average attendance rate of sixty percent, or that six out of ten members will be able to make your meetings on a regular basis. This means if you have only four in your club, you will have to either accept that only two of you will be there most of the time, or you will have to continually contact one another back and forth until you can finally come up with a time at which all four of you are free. On the other hand, if you have twenty or more, the group will likely be less cohesive, less intimate, and fewer people will feel obligated to be there regularly because they won’t have the same sense of ownership and responsibility that members of a smaller club will have. We have fluctuated in membership between ten and thirteen, with an average of twelve, eight of whom are present on a regular basis.
No matter how careful you are in selecting your members, you will likely have one or two drop out within the first few months. This is good, because you want to weed out the less devoted members. Depending on the number you started with, you can then decide if you should invite replacement members. I must say that a couple of our replacement members have ended up being great assets to the club, so don’t hesitate to extend your membership to good candidates in the months after your club has begun to meet. Tammy and I asked the other members for recommendations, and that’s how we found some of our newest members.
Chapter Two: Time, Place, and Frequency
After choosing and inviting your members, you will need to decide on a time, place, and frequency for your meetings.
When my club first started, we met during the day, because everyone on our list either worked part time or not at all, and this worked for us because the meetings didn’t take away from preparing family meals or running kids to their various after school activities. Over the years, we began varying the time to include Friday and Saturday nights because a couple of our members went back to work, and we wanted to offer times when they could join us. We came up with a system that seems to work for everyone: whoever hosts picks a couple of dates and times and then emails everyone to see when the majority can come.
My co-founder, Tammy, initially wanted to host all of our meetings, but she didn’t foresee how daunting this task would become. I recommend that you avoid starting out this way, for you will quickly feel burned out with having to clean before and after each meeting. We soon began taking turns hosting, with the incentive that whoever hosted got to pick that month’s book.
By now you have figured out that my club meets monthly, though there have been times when we have combined the summer months into one meeting. Meeting once a month works for us, but you might also consider bi-monthly or even quarterly meetings. You may feel little cohesion with the other members in your first year, but give it some time. If you can keep the club going for at least two years, the cohesion will come.
In our first year, we couldn’t manage a December meeting, and before I knew it had happened, January was coming to an end and we still had not chosen a book and a meeting date. The club might have collapsed here had we not been flexible. Tammy sent out an email to the members saying that we had skipped the holidays this year because everyone had been so busy, but now that the kids were going back to school, we would get back on track. I selected the book and hosted an early February meeting, and we picked up where we had left off. The moral of this story is that if you miss a month or two, don’t assume your club is crumbling. Be flexible. As the founder, pick up the reins and steer the club back to the right path. On the other hand, don’t let this happen too frequently. Try to maintain some level of consistency. If your members see that the club has become unpredictable and they never know for sure if they will be reading and meeting from month to month, then your club will be in danger.
One way to avoid missing meetings is to come up with the next two or three books at a time. For example, on the day of my writing, it is April 2011, and my club knows that we will be meeting at my house in May to discuss Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, at Terry’s house in June to discuss Lauren Ruotolo’s Unstoppable in Stilettos, and at Tammy’s house in July to discuss Laura Hillenbrand’s Sea Biscuit. This allows voracious readers to read ahead, if they’d like, and others to buy the books in advance so they can squeeze in their reading when they can.
Sometimes a hostess in my club will realize her date is coming and she cannot possibly get her house in order in time for a meeting. Rather than cancel and reschedule, she has the option of making a reservation at a restaurant for the same date and time as the original meeting. She’s not expected to pay for everyone’s meal, of course. Even when she hosts at her house, every member brings a dish. This restaurant option allows for those last minute crises that can often occur just before you plan to have a party. Nobody in our club minds going out to eat for the meeting every once in a while, but most of us prefer the intimacy and comfort of a member’s home.
As the founder, you may decide you want to hold your meetings at restaurants exclusively. In fact, it would add fun and interest to allow each member to choose a new place to try each month. Or, perhaps you have access to a community center or other meeting place. With modern technology, it’s also possible to create a virtual meeting place through live chats or forums. Consider all of your options and discuss it with your members before making a decision.
Chapter Three: Format
My book club uses the novel Angry Housewives Eating Bon-Bons, by Lorna Landvik, as a model for our format. In this novel about a book club, the characters choose to serve food that somehow relates to the book of the month. Sometimes the setting makes it easy to choose a theme; for example, a novel in Mexico means Mexican food. Other books take place in multiple settings, so we allow other aspects to inspire us: A cozy novel means comfort food; an exotic novel means, well, exotic food. The hostess announces the food theme and then calls for the members to volunteer a dish. She collects the information through email, and then sends out a tentative menu just before our meeting.
When we gather, we visit until all of the members have arrived. Before we discuss the book, we make our plates, buffet style, and sit and eat together. Usually before we have finished eating, someone has already brought up the book, and so we begin our discussion; if not, we put away our plates, make ourselves comfortable, and discuss the book before we have our dessert. We usually continue our discussion through dessert.
Sometimes the hostess has prepared or found questions to get the discussion going, but often we just say what we liked and/or didn’t like, and before we know it, the ball is really rolling. As the founder, it is important that you keep the discussion from going sour. There are several things you can do to avoid a sour talk. First of all, rein in the monopolizers. Although you don’t want to discourage people from participating, if, after the first few meetings you discover one or two members keep hogging the floor, you might tease them with a gentle hint: “Okay, Martha, give someone else a chance to talk,” or “Breathe, Betty!” I wouldn’t issue a formal complaint, even privately, because she or he may feel embarrassed or hurt or discouraged enough to drop out (unless that’s the result you are hoping for). Teasing, however, combined with a sweet smile, is usually enough to remind people that others might have something to contribute to the discussion.
A second way you can keep your talk from going sour is to help members get to know one another better in your first year of meetings. Start out by having each person reveal something about himself or herself that is not widely known. You could also use the book you have read to help come up with a question for each person. For example, when we read Jill Smolinsky’s The Next Thing on My List, we asked each member to share what three to five things would be included on a list of things to do before you die. When we read Tracy Chevalier’s Remarkable Creatures, we asked each person to tell what part of their body they “lead” with when walking. And when we read Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, we each told what we thought our “word” was. Another intimacy-building technique is to plan a date to go see the movie version of a book you have read and then go for coffee afterward to discuss the similarities and differences between the book and movie versions. We have done this with several books, including Philippa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl, Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper, Patrick Suskind’s Perfume, Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, and Kim Edwards’s The Memory Keeper’s Daughter. We also had meetings where re rented older classics, such as Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Charlotte Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, and Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisted.
One other way we’ve developed intimacy in our group is by having a “Favorite Things” gift exchange at our December meetings. The holidays are busy for everyone, so we try to pick a short, easy read. We make the meeting even more attractive by bringing something we love that’s not too expensive as a gift to our fellow members. Last December I received a butter bell, a turban towel, candied jalapenos, an exotic chocolate bar, a German face cleanser, and a collection of spices along with a recipe for brisket. I rediscovered my love of crocheting by making scarves for each of the members.
As you establish some degree of intimacy with the members of your group, the shyer folks will feel more comfortable contributing to the discussions. You might find that sometimes you’ll have to prompt them by asking, “What do you think, Susan?” or “Would you agree, Nancy?” Usually this is all it takes. For some reason, some people need permission, or need to feel they have a right to the floor, before they will share.
The final way you can keep the discussion from becoming a disappointment is to have reasonable expectations. Don’t expect each meeting to produce an awe-inspiring, in depth, profound discussion that leaves you with goose bumps. Sometimes just having read the same novel and making a few comments together about it is enough. If you push the group for too much, they may feel overwhelmed or intimidated. Go with the flow.
Speaking of expectations, a sure way to kill your club is to make people who haven’t finished reading the book feel unwelcome. Let your members know that they should plan on attending meetings even when they haven’t read. Most of the members will not abuse this privilege because you will have picked book lovers and because book lovers hate to be left out of conversations about books. If you have someone who consistently fails to read, tease him or her about it. That person will either start reading or drop out.
For more information about good book reads for book clubs, please see my blog at http://www.bookclubpicks.blogspot.com.
Eva Pohler teaches writing and literature at the University of Texas at San Antonio where she lives with her husband, three children, and two dogs. She enjoys reading, writing, gardening, and home improvement projects. She is also the author of Magpies in Winter, a historical family saga, and The Mystery Box, a literary suspense, both available at Smashwords.com. Be on the lookout for her forthcoming novel, The Gatekeeper’s Sons, a teen paranormal romance between a girl and Thanatos, the god of death.