How to Host a Virtual Book Club

So you’ve realized it’s time for your next book club and yet you are socially distancing at home. You can still meet with your friends virtually AND make it a special evening. By connecting on your computer to your friends via Zoom, you can host up to 100 people all at once! We are going to explain how AND we are going to help you kick your typical meetings up a notch with the latest (FREE) issue of the Beyond the Bookends Book Club guide.

If you are new around here, let’s go back to basics. Each year we host a reading challenge with guided prompts to explore books by topic or genre. This year, we also introduced a quarterly magazine featuring food, decor, a themed Spotify playlist, costume suggestions, and book themes. The first magazine was met with praise and delight, but this issue is due out in the middle of social-distancing. Together, we figured out fun and creative evenings for your book club to experience together while apart.

In order to properly utilize screen sharing, which you will need to do for some of the activities, we recommend creating a free Zoom account. The difference between free and paid is the 40-minute time limit. Zoom will close the meeting out automatically at the 40-minute mark. If everyone understands that it happens, it’s easy enough to wait for a new meeting request and get started again.

We recommending asking everyone to gather the same supplies – foods, drinks, items you need for a group activity, – in advance of your meeting. Have one person print out discussion questions and activity instructions and be the designated leader of the group. You can create activities or play games based on the theme of your chosen book. Try not to focus too much on the news. Set a timer to talk about your worries and then move on to a lighter discussion. Taking a mental break from the news is something we all need to do.

How to Host a Virtual Book Club with the Magazine.

To go along with the 2020 Reading Challenge, each month, we release a large post with tons of book suggestions on a given topic. We also include real-life photos and suggestions for how we implemented our ideas in real life. We will be doing our own virtual book club right beside you!

The Book Club Guide magazine you get if you subscribe to our email is a preview of what will be coming in the monthly posts. It will feature easy to gather food that is on theme, fun virtual activities to play as a group and discussion questions by topic. As a bonus, it comes with a themed monthly playlist on Spotify.

The magazine is designed to help you chose your next book and begin preparations for your book club. This way, if you want to jump around, skip topics, or rush ahead, you’ll have access to 8 great book recommendations and tons of creative ideas to get you started.

If you want your fun, FREE book club guide, sign up for our emails and you will get a downloadable version sent directly to your email today.