Hometown Reads is all about community, and it’s one of my big things too. I’m one of those folks who sees something missing, and jumps in to fill the gap.

I built a great thriving local writer’s group here in Sacramento with more than forty authors, and I thought I’d put together a practical guide for folks who want to do the same.

Step One: Find Your Core Group

It all started with a lunch meeting – two other author friends and I. We were talking about how great it was to hang out with other authors, and thought it would be fun to make it a regular thing. So we became the founders of QSAC – the Queer Sacramento Authors’ Collective.

Step Two: Reach Out to Other Authors in the Community

We pooled our resources and started reaching out to other local authors. We found them through a variety of means – friends of friends, Facebook, local events. We let bookstores and other community organizations (in our case, as a queer writers’ group, the LGBT center and the Lavender Library) know we existed, and they have all funneled folks our way.

Step Three: Find a Regular Meeting Place

The core of our group is our bimonthly lunch – a chance for writers to hang out for a couple hours, to share tips and ask questions and basically just enjoy the company of other authors. Find a central place with a good food section that has enough space for your group and which is quiet enough for conversation.

Step Four: Come Up With a Brand

Figure out a name for your group. and delegate design of a logo to someone in the group who is good with photoshop. Delegation is key in these groups. Don’t take it all on yourself or you will burn out, sooner or later. Once you have the design, you can get a table runner for your group for about $30 at BannerBuzz.com, which you can use at local events.

Step Five: Set Up Mentoring

One of my favorite things about our group is the capacity we have to help out new authors. We have a deep bench of experienced authors, and also some folks who are just getting started. We’ve been able to help them find their way, both in their writing and in getting published, both with one-on-one mentorships and general assistance from the group at large.

Step Six: Find Community Events

One of the reasons for the existence of our group is to connect with the greater local community. For us as a queer group, this comes in the form of attending gay pride events and doing readings at our local LGBT library. But it can also mean getting a table at your local farmer’s market, or participating in a book festival or other event. As a group, you can leverage your numbers to pay for tables, making such events much more affordable than doing it on your own. As a group, we decided not to collect annual dues yet, instead splitting costs such as these among attending authors.

Step Seven: Create a Mailing List

You can set up a free blog using any of a number of services – blogger.com, wordpress.com, etc. Once you have the site set up and a mailing plug-in chosen, start collecting names and emails for your list at the events you attend. Just make sure you get consent to be on your list – look up GDPR guidelines for the strictest applicable law regarding this. We also created an eBook sampler of our works from a bunch of our authors that we provide for free to everyone who joins our list.

Step Eight: Be Creative

There are so many other ways you can grow your group and become a force in your own community. Brainstorm with your members, and delegate. If someone has a great idea, ask them to run with it.

I’m not going to lie. Creating a local group is hard, and it takes a lot of work. But it can also be extremely rewarding to watch it grow and flourish.

If you have any questions about building your own group, feel free to contact me at scott@jscottcoatsworth.com