Carpe Libri! Budding Book Club Baron Brings in $6,400/Month

Book clubs can be a lot of fun. (I say that as an author.) But what if you could make money running one? Here's a hint: it's not only about the books. It's about community, and a shared experience of bonding over ideas. Wherever there is value, there's potential to make money.

Ben Keene is a UK-based business consultant and coach. He helps startups, individuals, and families lead extraordinary careers and make an impact in the world. But despite all the time he spent helping others, he needed a little help himself. He had a habit he couldn't break.

The Japanese have a word for it: tsundoku, the act of buying books and never reading them. One click on Amazon and there it was on his Kindle. He wanted to read more life-changing books, not only buy them, but he couldn't get past page 100, or sometimes page 10. His pile of unfinished books was out of control.

Ben wrestled with the problem on vacation in Bali, where he met someone with the same affliction. This person was also named Ben, and also from London. The two Bens decided to pick a book, set a date, and meet up to discuss it over a cocktail. Knowing he'd have to talk about it, Ben churned through Peter Thiel's Zero to One. When the reading rendezvous arrived, 12 other people joined them, all through word of mouth.

Back in London in April 2015, the Bens resolved to meet once a month to talk about a book, and to invite others along. They also decided to test their riskiest assumption: would people want to accelerate their nonfiction reading habit, and pay £15 (about $19) a month to do it? If 15 people signed up in month one, they'd continue. The next month, they held a meetup on the rooftop of Virgin HQ in London. Twenty-four people came, and 24 people paid. Rebel Book Club was born.

Startup costs were about $13 (£10), for the domain name. After year one, they had 104 members with little effort, all through word of mouth and zero spent on marketing. Meetups take place in coworking spaces like WeWork, Virgin, Airbnb, Work Life, and Huckletree, and sometimes in London parks. They got all these venues for free or in kind through work relationships, friends, and members.

Members vote from a choice of three books each month. Instead of debating whether they liked a book, they discuss what it can lead to and how to apply it. I think that's smart. With a nonfiction book, there's always something to take away, even if you disagree with much of the message.

By November 2018, three and a half years in, Rebel Book Club had 350 members and was earning $6,400 a month. It had grown organically 44 months in a row. The club has also hosted live Q&As with authors of the books they've read, and lined up Seth Godin to speak via Skype at a meetup. And Ben's own reading habit accelerated by 600%. He read 50 books in a year, as a father of three kids under five.

They take it one month at a time. If it stopped growing or became too time-consuming or stressful, they'd quit. For the first time, they're putting in more than two hours a week. They're also considering virtual options, partly because Ben moved his family to the Thai island of Ko Lanta. He's got the spine for it. Since the move, he's kept the pages turning over Skype with his rebel cohort.

This is a membership model, and the economics show how sustainable it can be. Members don't pay much individually, but it adds up. If your membership costs $39 a month, you could earn the same with half as many members. A business-focused membership might cost $97 a month or more. Of course, you need the right value proposition in front of the right people, and an offer that converts. But once people join and stay, you know what next month looks like. That takes a lot of the variance out of the income equation.

Learn more at RebelBookClub.co.uk.