Starting a Book Club at College
Hey guys, I'm an English student at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA. While there is an English club here, they only meet once every three weeks, and there is always a guest speaker so the students can rarely talk about what they are interested in. I asked around and found a few people who would be interested in a book club, and I was wondering if you guys had any pointers on getting it up and running.
The first problem I came up with is getting the word out. Most student organizations advertise through posters, and I thought it might be a cool idea to use Photoshop to blow up a Fight Club book cover, but change "Fight" to "Book" with the same font (I have no idea how hard/copyright infringing this would be do to, because I suck at Photoshop and don't know much about piracy:11: ) I figured Fight Club would be good as opposed to another book cover because, obviously, the name can be changed easily, and most people I've talked to didnt even know Fight Club exists as a book ( :wtf1: ) This could be used to possibly get some non-readers interested. What do you guys think?
go for it - and you'll probably get like-minded people to join
also, with rant by palahniuk, and new books by will christopher baer and craig clevenger out this year, as well as a new stephen king (blaze) to mention a few, you've got some good source material right there
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you're at VCU? I live in fredericksburg..
Alright great I'll definantly use that poster idea then.... Anyone know someone good at photoshop?:confused:
Also, when coming up with the reading list I was thinking that everyone could bring a list of a few books they want to read, then tell a little bit about it if no one has heard of it, then the group would vote to decide which books made the final list. Sound decent?
And hey Chimney, while I am at VCU I'm almost clueless about anywhere else in Virginia haha, how far is Fredericksburg from here?
i'm great at photoshop, but have little to no time - if you can't find anybody else, let me know and i'll help out - i've been in advertising for 12+ years, that's what i do
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fredericksburgs like an hour north.. between richmond and dc
A few ideas that seem good to me:
-Check with your student union to see if you can get funding for your club. I known at my university, if you had 6 or more people in your club, you could get like a hundred bucks a month for snacks or posters, whatever.
-Have at least a core group of four or five that you can start with. Don't rely on posters to make a legitimate group for a discussion. College students are lazy and even if they want to come, 70% of 'em won't.
-It might be a good idea to have a book ready to go for the first discussion. Democracy in choosing books is super, but I think especially for the first one, you need someone to take charge. From there, you can compose a list together. If you're going to use Fight Club for your poster inspiration, sounds like a good book to start the club with, though maybe you want to go with something a little more up to date.
-Organize like a motherfucker. It doesn't have to be minutely detailed, but I'd say have an itinerary for the first few meetings so that it's not like "So, this is book club.... What do you guys wanna do?" Know how long you want the meetings, what you want to get accomplished, and try to make sure these things will be accomplished in the amount of time you want to spend.
-Free food and/or drinks encourages people to come. Punch and pie are always good.
My big piece of advice would be to use books that your members will have an easy time getting, at least for the first few months. If you have one copy, read it ahead of time so you can loan it out tom someone else. Talk to your university library or even local library. Explain what you're doing and see if it's possible to get multiple copies of the same book one way or another.
One other thing you might want to try is having your meetings in a public place. If you meet at a local coffee shop where people will see you, you might get a few more people interested that way.
I guess the main thing with the books and picking a meeting spot is to make it all easy as possible. The more work you do, the easier it is for everyone else, the more people you'll get to show up.
Hey guys, sorry I let this thread die for a bit, havent had much time lately and I had my appendics removed so I couldnt get on for a while.
I havent found anyone with decent photoshop skills to edit the book cover yet but I'm still looking. As for a book thats easily accessable, I was planning on starting with Fight Club, and I *heard* that there is a website where you can download it for free and just print it out, but that sounds too good to be true. Have any of you seen that?
[QUOTE=Dias;942319]Hey guys, sorry I let this thread die for a bit, havent had much time lately and I had my appendics removed so I couldnt get on for a while.
I havent found anyone with decent photoshop skills to edit the book cover yet but I'm still looking. As for a book thats easily accessable,[B][I] I was planning on starting with Fight Club, and I *heard* that there is a website where you can download it for free and just print it out, but that sounds too good to be true. Have any of you seen that?[/I][/B][/QUOTE]
You may be strapped for cash, but that's not very honest. Can't you get some copies out of libraries? Stealing isn't a good idea...
also, like Rents said, you may be able to get your school to give you some cash, and you could buy copies. I'm sure that's not what you want to hear, but don't print them off from an internet site! Think about it, it's like stealing from chuck.
Brentinlouis Wrote: What was that rule about being intentionally annoying?
Oh no no, I didnt mean to sound like I wanted to pirate some of Chuck's work, I figured the only way the entire book would be available for free download is if he approved it in the first place. I own two copies myself so I have no need for a printed version here, but the college library only has 1 copy available for circulation so it would be hard for each person to get ahold of it. Obviously I'd prefer for everyone to run out and get their own copy but some people might not be willing to shell out the cash for it, especially if its the first book for the club.
Another reason I didn't consider it to be stealing is that if they have not read Fight Club before, they probably havent read any of Chuck's other books either; its a good way to get him a few more fans. While he may be losing some money from an online version, if they like it enough I'm sure they would buy a real paperback version (I would anyway), and probably check out more of his work. This would net him more cash in the long run, I'd imagine... if this website even exists haha
[QUOTE=LeHaHi;942328]You may be strapped for cash, but that's not very honest. Can't you get some copies out of libraries? Stealing isn't a good idea...
also, like Rents said, you may be able to get your school to give you some cash, and you could buy copies. I'm sure that's not what you want to hear, but don't print them off from an internet site! Think about it, it's like stealing from chuck.[/QUOTE]
actually, it's more like stealing from his publisher
Well, whatever.
Brentinlouis Wrote: What was that rule about being intentionally annoying?
Most college students already have enough to read (or not to read, like at my school) so you'll be hard-pressed to motivate the "right" audience to take on another commitment. But hey, I'd love you to prove me wrong.
In grad. school way back when, I was in a book club for about 6 months. I think there was a total of 7 of us. It was both challenging and rewarding. I remember reading Gravity's Rainbow - we read a chapter a week and met weekly for discussions. As I'm sure a lot of you may know, that book is a monster. I learned a shitload of stuff I've forgotten. It helped having language and history professors within the mix. We'd drink and discuss for hours. It's a great time.
i say go for it
i don't think anyone's going to care about you using the Fight Club cover for an ad poster as long as you're not charging money to get in the book club