Online book club or community is a discussion portal one can join and discuss books, authors, writing etc with other members of the portal. Users can post topics which are open to the other members and respond to any topic of their interest. Topics can be anything: a question, an opinion, an announcement etc. Every online book club, community and forum has a panel of trusted members referred to as moderators. Their job is to keep an eye on the content posted by users and remove spam and irrelevant content. Moderators make sure to keep quality content on the portal.
The need for online book club or community
I read a few books every month and whenever I am about to finish a book, my foremost concern is- What should I read next? Or with whom to discuss the questions, opinions and recommendations about the most recent book I read. Yes, I do have friends who love to read- with whom I exchange ideas, but they are not many. In fact, everyone has his or her own taste or doesn’t have time to discuss. In such a situation, being a member of an active book club can prove to be significantly valuable. At such platforms, you can discuss anything related to books, reading and writing to share your view and knowledge with others.
It is like a social media channel for a reader. Just a daily visit will certainly not affect your reading schedule; but can make an immense difference to your reading preferences. As I say often, that reading is important but reading good books is more important and an online book community can be a good source for finding out good books.
Benefits of joining an online book club
- Talking to like-minded people: Online book clubs are a great place where you can meet people like you, who share common interests as you do. Yes, opinions might differ but the beauty lies in discussing different opinions about things in common. Isn’t it?
- Sharing your opinion: You might undervalue your own opinion about something, but your opinion might be worthy for others. Online book clubs are a great place where you can share your view on a subject and deliberate further. Moreover, it is a great place to discover alternate opinions and rebuild your own.
- Get recommendations: This is the most advantageous part of an online book club. While looking for a good book, ratings alone are not helpful because most people rate books without giving much thought into the reasoning behind it. To elaborate on how I do so, I wrote a blog previously, How to rate a book. A plethora of ratings available online these days can be misleading. Written reviews are more worthy. Someone who invested time to write a book review can be of great help to you in deciding what you intend to read next. The platform provides an unparalleled way of a two way of information enabling as well as to share your reading preferences and get personalised book recommendations from other members.
- Provide feedback: You can share your views about a book through an online community and help others to decide if they really want to pick it? You will have to give some time to write the review; but it will save a lot of time for others to make a quick decision. Don’t know how to write an interesting book review? You might find my blog “How to write a book review – a step by step guide” helpful.
- Stay up-to-date: Most online book clubs discuss the latest news like upcoming books, new authors etc. These are as a matter of fact a good source for staying up to date with what is happening in the domain you are passionate about.
- Interact with authors Authors tends to join popular online book clubs to talk to their audience to promote their books and take feedback from readers directly. If you are not an author, such communities can provide you with a medium to network with authors and learn a lot of new things. You can ask a question, discuss their book or even thank them by mentioning words of praise for their work.
- Become social: Yes, there are plenty of social media options available like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. But the problem arises when the information being shared is muddled up or too generic with a downside of having to deal with advertisements. Most of the content isn’t helpful. Whereas, a subject-centric community provides you with crisp and concise information in a fraction of minutes. You enjoy being surrounded with the information, people and strategic data pivotal to your interest.
So, which one to choose?
Joining an online book club or community is more fruitful than it seems. It is for sure helping others to help you. Though there might be concerns about which one to join? A big community having millions of discussion topics and responses might look messy. Try to choose the one which is highly moderated and provides high quality content. Choose the one which won’t spam your inbox with ads and which follows a strict privacy policy. If you find such club or community, go ahead join that.
Writoscope is starting an online book club soon- “Writoscope Community”. Which will follow strict guidelines and privacy policy where nothing is shared with third party organisations (not even your emails). We are building not just an online portal but a unique association to enable high quality discussions for book lovers and writers as per their ease. We are building what we couldn’t find yet. Our team of moderators is working hard to moderate the content to keep it relevant to the topic and high quality. For more STAY TUNED!!
Submit your email in the form below and we’ll send you an invitation as soon as the community is live. We’d love to have you among the first few to join our distinct initiative to collaborate with a common perspective – For the love of Reading and Writing.
Start the discussion at Writoscope Community