Jane K Lee

Reese’s Book Club · Membership

Our cozy corner
of the internet.

Reese’s Book Club already had a passionate social audience. The opportunity was to build a more direct relationship with the readers who cared most—giving them a dedicated place for conversation, exclusive access, discovery, and shared reading rituals.

Reese’s Book Club App screens designed for community conversation and book sharing
Community · A dedicated space for book people

Belief

Community deserves a place of its own.

My role

  • Community Strategy
  • Membership Development
  • Product Strategy
  • Editorial Programming
  • Audience Development
  • Retention Strategy

01

The Opportunity

Reese’s Book Club already had a large, highly engaged social audience, but most of that relationship lived on platforms we didn’t own. We wanted a place where the most invested readers could go deeper—talk to each other, get closer to authors and stories, and build routines around the club beyond the monthly announcement.

That became the opportunity for the Reese’s Book Club app: turn a social audience into an owned community with reasons to return.

At launch, 300,000 members joined in the first week.

Social audience→Owned community

02

Building a Home for the Community

The app became what we called our cozy corner of the internet: a dedicated space for the readers who showed up every month. Members could discover the monthly pick first, access exclusive author content, talk directly with other readers, join live experiences, and participate in community programming built around the books they already loved.

The goal wasn’t simply to move existing content into an app. It was to create a place that felt meaningfully different from following Reese’s Book Club on social—more intimate, participatory, and useful to the people who wanted more.

Reese’s Book Club App screens showing monthly reading rituals
Monthly rituals
Reese’s Book Club App screens showing book discovery
Discovery
Interactive prototypeExplore the interactive prototype.Explore the prototype ↘

03

Giving People a Reason to Come Back.

The most important question wasn’t how to get people to download the app. It was what would make them open it again next month? That led us to build repeatable rituals around the reading cycle. Rather than treating engagement as a constant stream of content, we focused on the moments when readers already had something to say.

  1. 01

    Clue Countdown

    Before each monthly reveal, we shared three clues and a lie and invited members to guess the next pick.

  2. 02

    Spoiler Chat

    Once readers finished the book, they could come back to unpack the ending, share theories, and compare reactions.

  3. 03

    Virtual Book Club

    Authors joined live conversations where members could ask questions and participate directly.

Reese Witherspoon and Patricia Engel in a Reese’s Book Club virtual book club
Virtual Book Club · Readers and authors together
Community prompts used during a Reese’s Book Club virtual conversation
Community prompts · Conversation with intention

04

What the Community Taught Me.

01

Follow the natural moments.

Readers wanted conversation most when they had just discovered the pick, finished the book, or had a strong reaction. Programming worked best when it followed those behaviors rather than forcing new ones.

02

Live inside the product.

I programmed and moderated the community, interviewed members, shared the roadmap with product and engineering, and experienced bugs and friction alongside everyone else. Being close to the audience made the product decisions better.

03

Reward the people who show up.

We gave our most engaged members early access to content, giveaways, experiences, and other forms of recognition. The relationship felt stronger when participation had real value.

05

What Happened

The app launched with 300,000 members in its first week and became a dedicated home for Reese’s Book Club’s most engaged readers. More importantly, it gave us a direct way to learn from the community and build programming around how they actually read, talked, and participated.

300Kmembers joined during launch week

06

What Stayed With Me

The Reese’s Book Club app eventually shut down, but the relationships built inside it didn’t disappear with the product. Some members became people we recognized month after month, and a few of those online connections even turned into real-life friendships.

What mattered most was never the app itself. It was creating a place where readers felt like they belonged, and learning that community isn’t something a product creates on its own—it grows when people are given meaningful reasons to keep showing up for each other.

The app didn’t last forever. Some of the relationships did.

Project archive

The story continued elsewhere.

Industry coverage

Fast Company
Reese’s Book Club Expands Into Its Own Dedicated App ↗

TIME
Hello Sunshine: Shifting the Narrative ↗

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