My Digital Role: Bookclub Host

In the offline world, reading is one of my favorite hobbies. This is an interest I share with my friends. However, running a book club has become predominantly an online role I’ve assumed. Our book club started because my friends kept asking me to recommend books. Due to the physical distance between us (between the seven of us), it makes it hard to meet up together, but due to the possibilities created through social media and the digital world, it becomes possible to still host our unconventional book club. This book club spans various forms of social media including Instagram, Tiktok, WhatsApp, and Storygraph.

My role within the book club started with me creating a WhatsApp group chat with two of my friends, this slowly became more as my friends would tell their friends and they’d want to join. Within this group, we discuss what book is to be read, or how much of a book is within a certain time frame (one month to read a book, etc.). We also use the group chat to send digital file versions of books or to request them. Most book club members use kindles for the convenience of reading on the go and being able to (dubiously) source books and upload them.

On Instagram, I created a group chat in which I’ve added all the members of the book club to send funny videos and memes related to books we have read or are currently reading. Most of the memes that have been sent so far within this Instagram group are about the ACOTAR book series by Sarah J Maas, as this is the first series we read as a book club (as seen on the right).

Storygraph has played a significant role in our book club. Every member who joins the book club is forced to make an account on Storygraph. This is because Storygraph provides different features that make it easier to host a book club. One of the biggest issues is that everyone reads at their own pace, yet still would like to share feedback with one another. Storygraph has the perfect solution: Buddy reads. this feature allows for a discussion post to be created based on a book, to which you invite your friends. In this case, it would be all the members of the book club. Everyone can comment on what part of the book they are in, but here’s the catch – you can only see the comments when you reach that part of the book by updating your progress in the app. This ensures that no one is accidentally exposed to spoilers, but still allows for comments to be placed and feedback to be given. Upon getting these comments, the op is notified and can go back to further discuss the point.

Besides offering the services of a buddy read, Storygraph offers various features such as providing statistics and recommendations of books. It also allows for users to part take in challenges like reading the collective works of authors, or reading a certain amount of books and pages in a year. This can potentially function as the gamification of the app to keep the users engaged to update progress, compete with friends, but most of all encourage reading.

Although it may seem like a lot of work, book club is a lot of fun. Being a host of book club is definitely a digital role I actively took upon myself, yet one that makes it so worth it as it allowed me to bond with friends I barley if ever used to talk to and share similar interests.