A Modest Proposal for Book Club

Live book clubs have several vital advantages over online ones.

• They have a set time and place, which 'makes' people do their homework
• They are very interactive on a group basis
• They are social occasions amongst a special group, usually friends

It is obvious why online ones often fail – the environment is just the opposite from the above. Priorities change. The book doesn’t get finished or if it does, writing a review gets pushed down the list. 

Obviously, it's easier to sit round and discuss it over coffee and forbidden treats.

These failings of online book clubs are recipes for collapse, and that’s what seems to happen. It's understandable. Those who have been dutiful online club members get disappointed. The others get embarrassed about their failure to complete their mission. It all goes silent.

Death of the club is usually swift, even though the corpse remains.

Anne Powles [@Qyntara] offered a possible kiss of life by providing an example of the model for the only online alternative, namely:

Conversion of the approach to a 'random' book review/comment site – short, long, whatever.

There are no pressures, no deadlines, no real 'club' in the sense that you need to join. You don't.

But how to post?

Here's an option.

Submit any reviews to readerbook7@gmail.com

 These will be posted as a blog piece and can be mentioned and retweeted on Twitter.

Presently there is only one person who can do that, but several people can [and should] have the email address and blogger password, can check for any new reviews, and can post on behalf of those who write an email.

If that doesn’t work, then it's been an interesting but failed experiment. So what? No harm in trying....

Any comments?

@deniswright