Recently, Petra Coach presented a webinar, 6 Tips & Tricks to Getting the Most Out of Your BetterBookClub with Arnie Malham.

You can find the full recording below.

For further conversation or questions about BetterBookClub, feel free to contact Arnie at arnie@betterbookclub.com.

Top Takeaways

About BetterBookClub

  • We are not a read what your boss reads book club. We are not a read what everyone else is reading book club.
  • We are about recognizing and rewarding the habit of reading.

Automating Your Rewards

  • Admins can set $ per point, max points per period, period length etc. to automate the reward process as team members begin to read and submit reports.

  • For new users, incentivize your teams to go ahead and set up their profile with a photo, tag some books they’ve read, etc. When you log on and see familiar faces and activity, you’re more likely to also participate.

Feeding Your Club Activity Through a Slack or Teams Channel

  • If you enable Slack or Team notifications, everyone in the organization gets a message when someone joins, finishes a book, or submits a book report.
  • This way, you don’t have to log on to see activity while keeps it more in sight and top of mind.

Checking Status and Managing Your Book Reports

  • Admins have access to a number of analytics: top read books, top readers, total books read, total reports submitted, ratings of books read, total Tango points rewarded.

  • One of these dashboards also shows any pending book reports that have been submitted and where they are in the rewards process.

  • Sharing this information will help people who do not yet use BetterBookClub get introduced to the program and keeps it a part of the culture.

Tagging Books Not Already in Your Library

  • There are two options for admins with adding books that are not already in the library.
  • Automatic (Recommended): Reinforces that you’re promoting reading overall, not just reading the books you choose. If somethings get added that for some reason isn’t a fit, you can remove it or lower the point value. Arnie finds it better to do this retroactively rather than being preventative. Arnie’s rule of thumb is, “Any book that makes you a better person” – this can be specific to your company.
  • Champion Approved: Leader has to approve books that people have read that aren’t in the library.

Following Your Favorite Books and People

  • Following a Book: If someone reads your favorite book, you can get a notification and have a conversation about it or recognize them for a great read.
  • Following a Person: If you want to see what someone on your team is reading you can follow them and get notifications of what books they read, and start conversations about the information they’re consuming.

Using Our New AI-Driven Book Recommendation System

  • Based on what you’ve read and your ratings of books, this feature curates a list of what you should read next, both inside and outside your current library
    • Additional features coming – filtering fiction or non-fiction, taking additional information into account like LinkedIn profiles and Myers Briggs type


Keeping It Relevant

  1. Start with Leadership
    • Have them set the standard for the rest of the team.
  2. Make it Part of the Onboarding Process
    • You are not fully onboarded until you are a part of the BetterBookClub community.
  3. Keep Recognition as Important as Reward
    • Give recognition in huddle for the top readers or someone who just finished a new book.
    • Set meetings once a month and give everyone 5 mins to share on their books; incentivize sharing and attending these meetings.

Like what you see? Register for our upcoming workshops & webinars today!