A Proposal for Improving the Book Club and the Community
Dear TPM Management,
A recent experience with the book club here has given me an idea to improve the book club and the community here at the Cafe. You are already planning out into the future the books and authors that will be discussed here. So, here is my proposal:
Two weeks before each author comes to talk with us, ask for volunteers from the community to participate in the book club discussion. Get an advanced copy of the book from the author or publisher, mail it to the commenter, and let them participate in the front page discussion of the book. Alternatively, for those wishing to remain anonymous, the commenter could purchase the book themselves.
So, what's good about this?
1. It involves the community in the front page.
2. Free book!
3. Authors will respond to us.
It is beautiful in it's simplicity. You should do it.
A recent experience with the book club here has given me an idea to improve the book club and the community here at the Cafe. You are already planning out into the future the books and authors that will be discussed here. So, here is my proposal:
Two weeks before each author comes to talk with us, ask for volunteers from the community to participate in the book club discussion. Get an advanced copy of the book from the author or publisher, mail it to the commenter, and let them participate in the front page discussion of the book. Alternatively, for those wishing to remain anonymous, the commenter could purchase the book themselves.
So, what's good about this?
1. It involves the community in the front page.
2. Free book!
3. Authors will respond to us.
It is beautiful in it's simplicity. You should do it.
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To flesh this idea out, if there are multiple people who want to participate in the book club for a given book, you could ask them to write a post explaining their interest or expertise, and then let people vote in the comments or by recommendations on who should get to participate.
July 21, 2008 4:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Heck, if there are multiple people just have a lottery. Part of the beauty of your idea is that it would keep these conversations from getting locked up by "the experts." An interested generalist, of the type who inhabit TPMCafe might surprise the authors and other participants with the kind of zany and yet useful questions that outsiders tend to come up with.
This is a terrific idea, Reece. And we should rec this post up so that somebody from TPM responds to it.
July 21, 2008 5:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
I like the lottery idea. In fact, each session could have 5 panelists from the TPMers who win. You could also say that once you "win" a lottery it's 6 months before you can "win" again, unless there are less than 5 new people competing.
I agree, destor, too many of those discussions are locked up and therefore tend towards tedious.
July 22, 2008 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I like the 6 months rule, too. Keep things fresh and give everyone a chance. And you know, now that we have "CA Rotwang" posting on the front page there's no reason to keep the rest of us out of the party...
July 22, 2008 12:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
here's a rec.
July 21, 2008 8:07 PM | Reply | Permalink