New Leaf Welcome to the New Leaf Book Club

[4691mls]

Perspective of a non club member: I am aware there are book clubs and I occasionally check to see what's being read. If I happen to see it's a book that interests me and is easily available maybe I will join in someday. I'm not likely to participate in the voting process as there are usually books I know I wouldn't read if they won.

As to how to get the attention of potential new participants - I'm guessing the General Forum probably attracts the most viewers. Maybe someone could start a thread there that could be bumped up when there's new activity in the club - just a simple post like "the New Leaf Book Club is now voting on what to read this month" or "the New Leaf Book Club is now reading x___" with a link to the relevant thread in the Book Club forum.

Originally Posted by Catlady

I go directly to the forums page and check the various forums I like; on the specific pages, I skim the threads and see which ones are bolded, indicating unread posts, and read the ones in which I'm interested.

That is how I use the forums. I never look at the home page. When I first joined mobileread I subscribed to a few threads but the notifications seemed to come a long time after a new post had been made; I found it quicker just to check the forums myself.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by CRussel

My problem is too many candidates! I'm having a hard time winnowing them down to one I want to suggest.

I hope you'll mention the ones you're considering but don't nominate. Unless they're all science fiction, of course.

[Bookpossum]

Originally Posted by 4691mls

Perspective of a non club member: I am aware there are book clubs and I occasionally check to see what's being read. If I happen to see it's a book that interests me and is easily available maybe I will join in someday. I'm not likely to participate in the voting process as there are usually books I know I wouldn't read if they won.

As to how to get the attention of potential new participants - I'm guessing the General Forum probably attracts the most viewers. Maybe someone could start a thread there that could be bumped up when there's new activity in the club - just a simple post like "the New Leaf Book Club is now voting on what to read this month" or "the New Leaf Book Club is now reading x___" with a link to the relevant thread in the Book Club forum.

Thanks for this suggestion - maybe a sticky in the Reading Recommendations would work? Issybird can tell us if it would be feasible.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Well, I'm glad you folks have candidates to offer. It's my theme, and I'm quite undecided.

I have mine. I'm anticipating a rush once the thread goes open.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by issybird

I have mine. I'm anticipating a rush once the thread goes open.

I think I'm going to wait and see what gets nominated.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by Catlady

I hope you'll mention the ones you're considering but don't nominate. Unless they're all science fiction, of course.

I do try to, Catlady. And only one of them would qualify as even mildly SFF. I read a lot of mysteries as well as SFF, and I certainly have some favourite series. I'm actively considering re-nominating one I nominated last January but that didn't get traction. But there are so many to choose from.

[gmw]

I enjoy a lot of mysteries and crime novels too, but there are so many highly generic ones that it's easy to exclude a lot of them: fun to read but easy to forget. I have read some good SciFi ones lately, but don't worry Catlady, I'm not tempted to nominate those (they were entertaining but not so much that I want to talk about them).

[issybird]

The March nomination thread is up.

[Victoria]

Originally Posted by issybird

I wonder how many navigate from (or even look at) the front page? As it is, I put the nomination thread on the front page and polls always appear on the front page by default. I suspect we all have blinders to an extent about the methods others use to read the forum.

I always start at the front page, and then cycle through the forums, via it’s main menu. It’s surprising to hear how few people go there. I’m not a newbie, but stll have a fairly limited understanding of the MR customization options. My guess would be that at least any interested newcomers would check out the front page, and see the New Leaf updates there - I always have.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Victoria

I always start at the front page, and then cycle through the forums, via it’s main menu. It’s surprising to hear how few people go there. I’m not a newbie, but stll have a fairly limited understanding of the MR customization options. My guess would be that at least any interested newcomers would check out the front page, and see the New Leaf updates there - I always have.

That's good to know. I'll keep adding the nomination thread to the front page in addition to linking to it from this thread, to catch as many eyes as possible.

[issybird]

I can't have been the only one to notice that most of the votes in the last poll happened in the first day. As a result, I thought perhaps we could cut the duration of the poll to three days from four. It would still be more than enough time for people to vote as they will, but it would have the advantage of tightening things up a bit; in other words, the outcome would be the same but we'd know sooner.

Thoughts, reactions?

[Bookpossum]

I think this would be good. It seemed to drag on for at least a day too long.

[Dazrin]

No arguments here. It just means I need to get off my duff and check availability sooner.

[CRussel]

Agreed here. For the last several votes, the vast majority of the votes have happened in the first day or two. And while there's usually at least one vote right before the end, I think that would be true regardless of how long the voting period is.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

I think this would be good. It seemed to drag on for at least a day too long.

It was hard to maintain a keen interest when nothing was changing.

Originally Posted by Dazrin

No arguments here. It just means I need to get off my duff and check availability sooner.

Unless there's a rush of comments in opposition, why don't we assume it's a go for our next poll. You can update the Guidelines at your leisure, if you'd be so kind!