How to start a book club with friends

Most book clubs die in the first three months. Not because people stop liking books. Because of three things: nobody can find a date, half the group did not finish, and the book felt like homework. Fix those three and the club lasts.

How many people

Four to eight. Three is a conversation that stops when one person is busy. More than eight and someone never gets to talk.

Ask people who read, not people you like. The friend who says "I should read more" will not finish the first book, and then feels bad, and then leaves. You want people who already have a book on their nightstand.

Picking the first book without a fight

Do not vote on ten books. Someone will lose and remember it. Do not let one person pick from their own shelf either. That is how a club ends up reading someone's homework.

Pick from what you all already love. Everyone in the club rates five movies. EpyLog reads what you each loved and hated and gives the club three books that fit all of you, with a line on why each one fits. You vote on three, not ten, and every one of them was picked for the room, not for one person. Nobody has to defend a choice.

If you are doing it by hand: each person names one book they have been meaning to read, the organizer picks from those and says why, and next time it is someone else's turn.

Either way, rules for the first pick: under 350 pages, available at the library and on audio. You are not trying to impress anyone. You are trying to get five people to the end of one book.

Set a pace, not a deadline

"Finish by the 30th" is a deadline. People miss deadlines and go quiet.

A pace is different: about thirty pages a day, and a check-in at a quarter, halfway and three quarters. At each one you say what page or chapter you are on. That is all. Nobody has to explain why they are behind.

EpyLog works the finish date out from the page count, puts it on a Sunday, and asks everyone how far they are at each quarter. The organizer can move the date.

When someone falls behind

They will. Every club has one person at chapter three when everyone else is done.

Do not wait for them. Do not chase them either, or you become the person who nags, and they leave.

What works: the club keeps going, and they know they can still take part in what they have read so far. The moment they log where they are, the conversation up to that point is theirs. Nothing past it. That is what EpyLog does automatically. Each person says what chapter they are on. They see their friends' notes up to that chapter and nothing past it. Nobody can spoil it for them, and nobody has to check who has read what before saying anything.

Talking before everyone has finished

This is the part most guides skip, and it is where clubs live or die. If you can only talk once everyone is done, you talk once a month and the first person who finished has forgotten the book.

Talk while you read. When something happens at chapter nine, say so, to the people who are past chapter nine. In a group text this is impossible, because everyone sees everything. In EpyLog it is the whole point.

If you are doing it without an app: agree on stopping points. A quarter, halfway, three quarters, the end. At each one, the people who are there talk. The people who are not skip the thread.

Questions that are not homework

"What did you think of the ending?" is not a question. It is a prompt for the loudest person to give a speech.

Better questions name a moment. "The basement scene. Did you put the book down?" One person answers, then the next. Everyone has an answer to that.

EpyLog writes one of these at each stopping point, and shows it to each reader the moment they get there. You cannot see anyone else's answer until you have written your own, so the first person to post does not set the tone for everyone after.

The meeting

Meet once per book, at the end. In person if you can, a call if you cannot. Ninety minutes. EpyLog proposes the Sunday after the finish date, with a calendar file in the mail.

Start with what people already said while reading. If you have been talking along the way, you have a record. EpyLog mails everyone the club's answers the day before the meeting, question by question, so the meeting starts warm.

Then pick the next book. A club with no next book is a club that has ended. By hand, do it before anyone leaves. In EpyLog the next pick opens a week after the meeting, three books from everyone's movies again.

Who runs it

Somebody has to send the reminders, set the meeting, and say whose turn it is to pick. That job is why organizers burn out.

Split it. One person picks the book, another sets the date, the club as a whole nudges the stragglers. Or give the job to EpyLog: it sends the reminders, proposes the meeting date, and asks the person who has gone quiet, from the club, not from you.

Start it this week

Text four people: "Book club. One book, six weeks, we talk while we read. In?" Everyone rates five movies, the club gets three books, you vote. Set the pace. Start.

Or give EpyLog your email, send your friends the link, and it does the rest: the book from your movies, the pace, the reminders, the questions, the meeting.

Questions people ask