Before

1. Allow members opt-in.

Since book clubs require high engagement from members, have them opt-in. Even better, have the opt-in per-book. For each book the club reads together give members the chance to opt-in or quietly decline. This will ensure that everyone in the club, for each book, is genuinely excited to be there & will keep engagement high.

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2. Dole out chapters.

Once members have opted in, split the book into 6 sections. Have members volunteer to lead the discussion on one of the 6 sessions. If you have lots of members in the club, you can have 2-3 members lead the discussion on each section.

We want members to lead these discussions so they can co-create the experience of the book club & design it into the type of experience they really enjoy. This collaboration is where a lot of the magic for the experience will come from. Use the first thread in the 📚 book club channel to have people choose which sessions they want to lead. You can edit & update the main thread as sections are claimed.

Good practice is for you to lead the first session (to set the tone & give others an example to look up to) and then have your members lead the next 5.

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3. Update members when their session is coming up.

Send members a DM 2-3 days before they are scheduled to lead a book club session. This will give them some time to read the section & prepare if they haven’t already. Send them the “⭐️ How to Lead a Meetup” doc to give them something to work off of.

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During

1. Kick-off the event.

Thank everyone for being there. Play some lo-fi music in the beginning (you can “screenshare” audio in zoom) as people trickle in to set the tone for the call.

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2. Introduce the members leading the discussion.

Before diving in, have them pose a fun question in the chat to get people ready to engage & warmed up. Easy example questions:

• What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream?
• What’s the best meal you’ve ever eaten?
• What’s the next trip you want to take?
• What song have you been listening to a lot recently?
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3. Allow them to lead the discussion.

They’ll likely have a couple slides, discussion points prepared. While it might be a little awkward at first, give them a few minutes to get into the they rhythm of things. For more info on what we recommend members do when leading a book club meetup, check out the ⭐️ How to Lead a Meetup document that’s created for you with this Experience.

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7. In the last 10 minutes, solidify the learnings in chat.

“Can everyone drop one this in the chat that they learned or found insightful during this call?”

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8. Remind folks about the next session & who’s leading it.

This is a good time to give people a heads up if they’re leading the next session 😁

After

1. Add notes from the call to a recap doc.

Notes don’t need to be super detailed — just pull out interesting insights, quotes, and high-level discussion topics. Use the templates in Admin - Drafts to do this easily.

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2. Post a quick “thanks for coming” thread.

Use this to link back to the recap document using Heartbeat’s “$” notation.

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3. Once the book is completed, have members vote on the next book to read.

You can also use the book club members to narrow down to 3 options & pose those to the rest of the community if you want to grow the size of the book club!

This is where members also have a chance to opt-out of the next book club (i.e. if life gets busy or the next book doesn’t interest them as much). This is a good thing — it keeps the activity levels high within the book club & doesn’t punish people for having busy lives!

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4. Message inactive members.

People that aren’t contributing to the book club should be messaged. If there’s prolonged inactivity from them, then remove them after a couple follow-ups. While this seems a bit mean, it protects the rest of the members in your book club & ensures that you’re keeping a really concentrated group of highly engaged folks rather than watering down the activity levels with dis-engaged members.

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