‘Book Club In Place’: How The Bookclubz App Brings Booklovers Together During Coronavirus Lockdowns

Book clubs were thriving even before the global lockdowns instituted in response to the coronavirus pandemic. They’re perfect for the internet age for two seemingly opposing reasons. First, the internet offers a great avenue to quickly gather book lovers, from an email chain that lets four college friends reconnect to an Instagram influencer who can turn thousands of followers into a loose ad-hoc club. And second, the act of reading a single book as a group offers a way to get off of the internet, clear your head, and join a community.

During a pandemic, as it turns out, book clubs become even more essential.

Bookclubz, a free website and mobile app designed for book club management, offers an impressive range of features including messaging, polling, meeting scheduling, and RSVP tracking, as well as a reading history library, file uploads, and reading recommendations. And since March 1st, their already-healthy following has leapt up a massive 26%.

The app now serves 50,000 members in 12,000 book clubs around the globe, after an increase of over 2,000 new book clubs in a month. Over one hundred of those new clubs even had names and descriptions specifically referencing quarantines, making crystal-clear the driving reason behind the sudden surge in book clubs.

This makes sense, too: Amid pandemic lockdowns, we’re all online even more than ever, and we’re all looking for a distraction from the malaise of generalized stress that has boosted alcohol sales by 240%, given us all weirdly vivid dreams, and ushered in a renaissance of poorly made sourdough loaves.

Book clubs are a great way to connect with friends while engaging your brain in something more rewarding than a social media feed or Netflix binge. To learn more, I chatted with Bookclubz cofounders Anna Ford and Nancy Brown for a joint written interview looking at how the global book club community, which before March mostly gathered in-person, has shifted to a virtual experience.

What’s your pitch for why a virtual book club is a great way to deal with a lockdown?

Now there is a question we never anticipated having to answer! During a lockdown it would make sense that we crave routine, companionship, community and a healthy escape. Sure, we have Netflix
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and the endless backlit scroll of Instagram (both very acceptable outlets) but there is something a bit more fulfilling about reading a book and then sharing that experience with a group of people. We have plenty of doom and gloom going on and book club is an opportunity to talk about a different story, bringing lightness to our day and a form of connection we all need right now. Your book club members are there for you.

In times of great change and uncertainty you learn what is sacred, because you get creative to keep it going. Before this pandemic 90% of our clubs met in person, but since March these clubs have quickly adapted and turned to virtual meeting platforms. They are staying together through this crisis, and Bookclubz is helping them stay organized. Book club is not cancelled! It’s actually thriving … and we’re seeing more and more new clubs form.

Can you detail Bookclubz’s new features? Which ones are already out and which ones are on the way?

We are so excited about the launch of a new page on our site called “Join a Book Club”. This page will help readers find a book club to join. We’ve been seeing myriad articles out there about public book clubs to follow – from celebrities to authors to media outlets. We hope to be the one stop destination for all book clubs – so every reader can find the right book club for them – if they aren’t already in a long standing club.

Other new features include: virtual meeting links, ability to share notes on books, summaries, and reviews so online discussion is more robust.

New tech features that we’re accelerating because of the pandemic: live chat and built in virtual meeting software.

Over 100 Quarantine-specific club names is pretty impressive! Can you give other examples of book club responses to the pandemic?

136 to be exact! And we definitely have our favorites, like “Book Club in Place” and “Reading from a Social Distance.” We recently learned about one of our book clubs in Minnesota that worked together to solicit donated PPE equipment for healthcare workers in their area. Taking action felt in line with the DNA of their club. As they said, “we are community focused, we have known one another through the years and always step up for one another in times of trouble and difficulty.”  

There is a broader applicability of our tool happening. We have more film clubs and poetry clubs meeting weekly. Non-profit organizations are starting a book club as a fundraising event and companies are running book clubs to help employees stay engaged. And probably most touching is to see virtual book clubs formed as a way for multigenerational families to stay connected. When grandparents can’t be visited in nursing homes or you have a family member on the front lines, virtual book clubbing keeps families together but separate, too. 

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