on our big move to discord

When I first dreamed up the book club, I had no idea what I was doing or what the book club could be. The most I could envision at the time was hopefully finding a few strangers from the internet who also read romance novels, and who might want to spend some time reading with me. Hell, I was even new to the genre itself.

I started up the club in an app called Fable, nervously made a Tiktok account, and little by little, people started showing up. Fable was fun because we could discuss the book of the month chapter-by-chapter, and there were a lot of cool built-in-features that made the club easy to run.

Sometime this spring, I researched a bit further into where and how people were hosting book clubs, and I slowly realized that Discord might actually be a platform better suited to our needs. By this point, I had started developing real friendships with people I had met through social media, and we needed a place to openly connect with other regularly.

Thus, a new era was born. I created the Discord account and watched as first a few, and then many, of my friends began to trickle in. We had space to chat about general hobbies, space to celebrate birthdays, and space to host buddy reads (which honestly, is my favorite part). Suddenly, I realized that this whole adventure was really always about that—having a space for community where we could show up and spend time together that would help us bridge different timezones and busy lifestyles. In short, it is infinitely more fun than I expected a book club could be.

And so, while making the decision to completely transition to a new platform happened quickly, I think it’s the right one. It makes sense for the book club to all exist in one place, and I would not give up Discord for anything. Starting October 1st, the club will exist entirely in our Discord space, and anyone who would like to come hang out is welcome to join in. We’d love to have you.