Do you know of a good (book) club scheduling app?

August 2, 2016 8:27 PM

I'm looking for an online app that will help me coordinate and schedule my book club meetings. Preferably free (or less than $10/month). My book club started on Meetup.com, which made sense when we were still new and growing. We have a good solid membership now so I was thinking of taking us off Meetup (which charges $10/month). I'd like to still have some type of online meeting management, however. Have you used a book club (or group meeting) app that you liked?

I like that Meetup has:
- Events that people can easily RSVP to
- People can comment on individual events (could do without this, but it's a nice feature)
- Automatic event reminders
- Email announcements when a new event is posted
- Ability for the admin to email the entire group
- Social login (nice but not necessary)
- Mobile app (nice but not necessary)

posted by radioamy to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (10 answers total)

Why does Meetup no longer work for you? It ticks all the boxes...
posted by so fucking future at 8:34 PM on August 2, 2016

We use Facebook for all of our book club stuff. Works great...
posted by pando11 at 8:40 PM on August 2, 2016

We use Google Calendar for our book club. Facebook works well too and feels easier to comment on but a handful of our group don't have Facebook accounts but surprisingly everyone uses Gmail.
posted by simplethings at 8:55 PM on August 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

If the reason you want to take it off Meetup is to stop it growing any further, you can turn on approvals for new joiners and never approve anyone.
posted by ellieBOA at 9:56 PM on August 2, 2016

You're basically describing Facebook. Just set up a group on there.
posted by ryanbryan at 10:24 PM on August 2, 2016

We also use Facebook for this. Set up a private group, give event creation permissions to whoever needs them. It's been incredibly useful.
posted by amicamentis at 6:28 AM on August 3, 2016

Just to be a nay-sayer, my book club organizes on Facebook and it annoys me. It's the only reason I haven't quit Facebook. In addition, several older people in the club are confused by the RSVP functionality and have missed events.

I'd ask people in the group first. If you want to keep it simple, you could just send out Evites, which also allow commenting and automatically send guests a reminder 2 days before the event (you can also email guests through the system). Here's one of their free book club templates.
posted by beyond_pink at 9:51 AM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks for all your advice so far. EVite might be a good one, although would I have to add every individual member to each event? Or is there a "group" option where you can save a list of invitees?

Regarding Meetup - I've turned on approvals for Meetup and am not accepting new members...but it seems silly to pay for what's largely a recruiting platform. I also hate asking everyone for dues twice a year.

I don't want to use Facebook because not everyone is on Facebook, and their events/reminders tend to get lost in the shuffle.
posted by radioamy at 10:59 AM on August 3, 2016

Yes, you can create contact groups in Evite.
posted by beyond_pink at 6:41 PM on August 3, 2016

Response by poster: I think we're gonna go with Evite. Thanks everyone for your suggestions!
posted by radioamy at 1:24 PM on September 2, 2016