Bout of Books is on Discord!
If you’re already on Discord or you’d like to connect with us there, you can join with this link. We’d love to have you with us!
For those who are brand new to Discord, it’s a place where you can create communities. We’ve created a Bout of Books server (i.e., community) that is invite-only through the link above link. Our Discord has topic-based channels, such as #readathon-info, #reading-in-place (where sprints happen!), and #choose-your-role, that you can use to communicate with fellow readers.
We have a channel called #how-to-discord in case you have questions on how to use it. We’re lucky to have fellow #BoutOfBooks-ers who are familiar with Discord and can help us newbies find our way.
Because Discord allows roles to be assigned to users, Kelly and Amanda have @cohosts. If you need to notify us of anything in any channel, you can mention us using that role. Bout of Books experts will also be assigned the @expert role, in case you have a question that experts can answer.
When you join our Discord, you have a few ways to customize your experience in our community. You can:
- Change your display name
- On computer: right click your profile image and choose “Rename”
- On mobile device, swipe left until all profiles are visible. Choose yours and click “Manage user”
- Navigate to the #choose-your-role channel to:
- Choose pronouns to display on your profile (this is optional)
- Choose the “sprinters” role if you want to be notified when people run reading sprints
- Introduce yourself on our #introductions channel
If you like reading sprints, be sure to choose the @Sprinter role! When someone wants to run a reading sprint, they can mention and notify everyone with the role. In the #reading-in-place channel, we have a Discord bot called Sprinto to help us run sprints.
To start a sprint, you have to enter a command, following this formula:
_sprint at :XX for XX
So:
_sprint at :15 for 20
Means that your sprint will start at the :15 for 20 minutes.
To join an active sprint, follow this formula:
_join XX
Where “XX” is your page number. If you’re on an ebook or audiobook, you can use whatever number makes sense for you. Kelly has, for example, used the Kindle location number for hers.
When the sprint is over, you can report your new number, with this formula (replacing XX with your number).
_wc XX
The Sprinto bot will report your page count as words (because it’s supposed to be a writing sprint bot!).
There is so much to do on Discord that this barely scratches the surface. And that’s okay! We’re still new to creating community on Discord and we’d like you to help shape what it ultimately looks like. If you have questions, hop on our #how-to-discord channel and ask. If we don’t know the answer, someone else might, or we’ll search online until we have it. Join us!
