I love Book Clubs and Reader’s Groups! Last week, I was having a conversation with another author and the subject of Book Clubs came up. He asked what I thought the advantages were to being connected with a book club, and how I linked up to them.

First, the advantages…

• New friends
• Loyal fans
• Loyal reviewers
• Great place to find beta readers and proofers
• Readers will share your book with their friends
• Wonderful animated discussions about the author’s stories, plots and characters
• The wine’s not too shabby either

All I want as an author is to give readers joy and a few hours of escape while reading one of my stories. Knowing, friends in a book club who enjoy my books are reading something I’ve written and then invite me to discuss it with them, fuels my writing engine. I’m linked up with a few book clubs and they are all fantastic to spend time with.

How did I find them?  Here are a few ways to become hooked up with a book club.

• If you want to approach a book club as an author, be sure your genre matches what they enjoy reading
• The best way to meet members of a book club is to invest the time and money into attending author/reader events.
  • There are groups on Facebook that advertise these events in your area or you can use Google for Author Events
• Check with your local library for book clubs that meet there and enjoy reading your genre
• Ask at local book stores
• Ask your friends
• There are book club groups on social media sites like Facebook, Goodreads, etc. Be careful introducing yourself into these clubs as an author. Many clubs are spammed by authors only wanting to sell their books. Don’t be this person. Join the club for the pure joy of discussing good books.

Readers enjoy meeting authors and learning about the writing process. Becoming aligned with a book club has been a fabulous experience for me. I’ve also made some very special friends.