Because books are about education and experiences, which people crave, they’re a powerful thing for any business.
That’s why creating a reading circle around your community is probably one of the best ways to spark more engagement, no matter your business type.
Online book clubs are proven to be powerful engagement engines and you can build them right into your existing membership website, especially if you need:
- Workplace book club inside a company
- Company reading group for leadership or skills
- School or university book club for students and alumni
- Local library book club with online extensions
- Community or niche membership site (self-development, parenting, writing).
How to do that? You can layer a book club on top of your existing membership structure – normally as a subscription if you want it to be paid or free.
In this post, we’re looking to provide you with more details on how to build a subscription based book club for your community, including:
- Membership and participation basics for book clubs inside a larger site.
- How book clubs are typically integrated into bigger membership platforms.
- Recommended tools.
- How to coordinate the book club experience inside a membership.
- Key benefits of opening a book club as its own subscription.
- Discussion and engagement ideas, and whether they work on WordPress.
- How subscriptions are usually sold through book club add-ons.
Membership & Participation Management
How should your book club work in a larger ecosystem of your site: membership signups, content releases, payments, etc.?
When your book club sits inside a bigger membership website, you first need to think about who gets access and how they join.
Think of a plan, a mindmap first.
Typical elements include:
Membership tiers, for example:
- Free members → access to general content
- Premium members → access to the book club
- VIP members → book club + host discussions + recordings
Book club enrollment / sign-up / pass
- Separate “Join the Book Club” page or upgrade option
- Clear explanation of what’s included: monthly picks, live sessions, discussion spaces
Smaller groups or sub-clubs
- Breakouts by genre (based on your membership type).
- Breakouts by department (for companies) or grade/major (for schools).
- Time-zone based groups for live sessions.
Participation rules and community guidelines
- Code of conduct (respect, no harassment, no book spoilers)
- How often meetings happen, what happens if you miss sessions
- Rules around sharing copyrighted content
Attendance tracking and engagement
- RSVP (if live)
- Attendance logging
- Add some gamification with badges or points for active participation
All this requires an initial plan and your view on how you want it to work, and then in practice, these processes are usually built using membership software with optional community or event tools.
How You Can Integrate Book Clubs Into Bigger Membership Websites
Based on the goal you want to achieve, there can be different ways to add a book club to a membership-based website, a few examples below:
- A dedicated membership level (for example, “Pro + Book Club” tier with special access).
- An add-on subscription on top of an existing membership, when members can pay an extra monthly fee to join the club
- Private area unlocked by a specific role or page.
- Third-party access – needless to say, you can run book clubs via social networks or other third-party sites but then its connection to your actual membership site can be limited.
From a technical perspective, there also multiple ways, but here are few working solutions:
- Access control with software (especially for subscription based book clubs) – you need to restrict book club content (book lists, recordings, discussion boards, Zoom links) to certain member roles or plans.
- Onboarding flows control to decide how a user actually gets to it: for example, joins the main membership → sees an offer to join the book club → completes book club subscription → automatically gets access to private book club sections.
- Group management to assign members to sub-groups based on their interests, department, or level.
On WordPress, one of the most used platforms for site building needs, this is often handled with membership plugins that also smoothly connects with:
- Forums or community plugins.
- LMS (learning management systems).
- Email marketing tools.
- Calendar or event systems.
To give you an example, how would it work with the WordPress membership plugin like ARMember?
ARMember lets you easily manage users, paid content, subscriptions and extra offers like book clubs.
ARMember can help you:
- Create membership plans (free, paid, recurring, one-time)
- Set up subscriptions inside your site
- Restrict content to member levels or groups
- Drip content, custom redirects, and a LOT more.
This makes it a strong foundation for a book club layer, such as:
- Book club as its own membership plan (e.g. “Book Club Membership – $X / month”).
- Book club as an extra offer (existing members can subscribe to a “Book Club Add-on” plan), ARMember handles payment + access control.
- By club type: workplace team book club, leadership-only book club, student book clubs.
Moreover, you can use ARMember to restrict book club pages (reading lists, archives, discussion notes), protect Zoom links and private replays, and show book club content only to users with a specific plan or WordPress user role.
How to Coordinate a Book Club Within Your Membership
After you’ve decided on the best way to implement a book club into the structure of your membership site, you need to run things smoothly.
Here’s a typical workflow and how it fits inside a membership site:
Set a recurring schedule
Decide your rhythm: monthly is most common, but some groups meet every 2 weeks. You can publish a book club calendar inside a protected area of your site. You can also use your membership plugin to show this calendar only to book club members.
Choose and announce the book
You want to have something like a “Current Book” page accessible only to the book club. It makes sense to include a book cover, description, why you chose it (especially important for workplace/school), and a reading schedule (e.g. chapters 1–5 by Week 1, etc.). You may also embed polls to let members vote for next month’s book.
Set up discussion spaces
Create topic-specific areas: pre-reading impressions thread, mid-book discussion, final wrap-up reflection, etc. You will also need to protect these areas so only book club subscribers can join (the ways are described above in the article).
Host live sessions
Add event pages with necessary info like date/time, video conferencing link, discussion questions or agenda. Tie those event pages to the book club membership plan in the plugin/software you use (e.g. ARMember) so only subscribed members can see details.
Track engagement and progress
Monitor who attends live calls and posts in discussion threads; who renews their book club subscription. This info is essential to help you customize the effectiveness of your book club online by adjusting meeting times, book choices, and level of difficulty.
Discussion and Engagement Ideas with ARMember
Let’s take a closer look at a few common engagement mechanisms that you can use with ARMember.
Discussions questions
- Create a “Discussion Questions” page for each book.
- Restrict it to the book club membership in ARMember.
Live video meet-ups
- Create a protected event page containing Zoom/Teams link, date/time and agenda or questions.
- Access to this page is restricted to book club members through ARMember.
- After the session, embed the recording, still only available to book club members.
Smaller book club sub-groups
- Create multiple ARMember plans or use levels such as: “Book Club – Fiction”, “Book Club – Nonfiction”, “Book Club – Leadership”.
- Assign content areas and discussion spaces based on these roles. Members can upgrade/downgrade between different club types.
Conclusion: Why Have Membership Based Book Clubs?
In short, book clubs are a wonderful thing to boost engagement, retention, and value, not necessarily reinventing your entire site or business processes.
Overall, here are the stars from the sky that you get by implementing a book club into your membership engagement strategies:
- Better stickiness, which, in workplaces and schools, often translates into higher participation rates across the whole platform.
- Extra recurring revenue if you sell book club access.
- Peer connections and long-term loyalty.
- You don’t have to create all the content from scratch!
FAQs
How to run a paid book club?
You can run a paid book club by creating a membership plan or add-on subscription inside your existing membership site.
Members can:
- Join through a dedicated “Join the Book Club” page
- Pay a recurring subscription fee
- Automatically get access to private book club content, live sessions, reading lists, and discussion spaces
Your membership software like ARMember manages all the payments, access restriction and enrollment behind the scene.
How to structure an online book club?
You can structure an online book club by creating membership tiers, a clear signup flow and protected book pages. On top of that, you should have a weekly or bi-weekly schedule and discussion areas for book club members only.
How can I create a book club?
You can create a book club on your membership site using ARMember. First you should plan on who gets the access and create your membership plans with pricing strategy. Later, create a “Join The Book Club” page on your site to promote it and for a smooth signup.
How do I charge members for a book club subscription?
You can charge members for a book club subscription either a standalone membership plan or an extra paid add-on on top of their existing membership. After payment, the ARMember, the WordPress membership subscription plugin unlocks book club pages, event links and discussion sections for those members.
How do I run a book club on WordPress?
For running a book club on WordPress, you can use a WordPress membership plugin like ARMember that lets you create plans, restrict book club content, manage subscriptions, protect Zoom/event pages and create sub groups like Fiction, Nonfiction or Leadership book clubs.
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