BookClub Raises $6 Million Seed to Scale Author-Led Book Clubs

BookClub’s $6M seed round to scale author-led book clubs, with Kyle’s notes.

Why it was kept

Kyle’s excerpts on BookClub, a platform for author-led book clubs, with his note that this is ‘just another facet of people building’ community around their content. Also kept: how it planned to use the funds, what authors do on the platform, and CEO David Blake’s point, from Degreed’s data, that people learn more from books and authors than from any other source. Kyle’s note: compare to Why Books Don’t Work.

As Kyle captured it

• Read BookClub Raises $6 Million Seed Financing to Scale Author-led Book Clubs
  • BookClub is a platform created to scale author-led book clubs
  • This is just another facet of people building Community around their content Book Publishing
  • BookClub will use the funds to establish a portfolio of authors on the platform across both fiction and non-fiction book titles, create cinematic video experiences with authors, and build a unique Community platform for 1:1 interactions with authors and book groups.
  • On their platform, authors can join your personal book group, lead virtual discussion groups, share exclusive interviews, engage in video-based Q&A’s and more; bringing their content to life for readers who want to dive deeper into a text with the ultimate authority.
  • “One of the surprises revealed in the data set built at Degreed is that people learn more in their lifetime from books and authors than they do from any other source, including college and professors, which makes authors the largest group of experts in the world,” said David Blake, BookClub CEO and co-founder. “Where nearly every category of expert (professors, engineers, athletes, celebrities, etc.) has a platform to scale and share their expertise, authors do not. Nowhere is there a dedicated home to bring authors and readers together. Our video-based learning platform is devoted to fostering these conversations. It establishes community, allowing club members to feel like they’ve been let in on the authors’ greatest secret while writers get to share their work in an entirely new way.”
    • Compare to Why Books Don’t Work