How to Throw the Best Book Club EVER (+ Free iPad Giveaway!)

Oh, AND we’re giving away an iPad Mini, a one-year subscription to Oyster and some beautiful books to encourage you to read even more! How sweet is that?

But first… party-planning time!

1. Start a New Tradition: Forget everything you think you know about book club. Now let’s rock your literary posse’s world by hosting a different kinda soirée — a book swap where your friends go through their bookcases and find the ultimate read to bring and pass on. Yes, that pageturner that you couldn’t put down and wanted to blog and tweet and tell all your friends about will be everyone’s very important Plus One to this event.

2. Make Menu-Planning a Party: Call over your BFF to help you test out recipes before the big day. It’s good to supply a party with the essentials and have enough bottles of red and white for your guests, but surprise them with an option they’ll tell all their friends about. Are you sitting down? We have two words for you: Wine. Cocktails. Mmm. You and your party helper can test out sips of Ecco Domani’s wine cocktails, like the Merlot-mixed Dolce Domani and the Ecco Frutta, which has Pinot Grigio in it.

3. Details, Details, Details: You need to invite guests. Sure, you could send out a mass email, but we promised you the best party, right? To help deliver on that, we created a printable invitation and RSVP card for you to download and mail out. The RSVP cards even give your guests a space to name the book they’re bringing and select their wine of choice. Merlot or Pinot Grigio? These are life’s tough questions.

Materials:
– printable invitation template (download here)

– matte photo paper

– colorful pens or thin markers

– stamps

– envelopes

Tools:
– color printer

– scissors

Instructions:

1. Print the template. Remember, there are two wine return cards on each page so you’ll need to print out twice as many copies of the first page.

2. Cut out as many return cards as you’ll need.

3. Fill out the invitation with all the info for your party “Mad Lib”-style. Have fun with it! If you need inspiration, check out ours above. We left you space to ask people to bring something and to give them a little preview of what the party will entail. PS: We’re planning a fun project for your shindig so you might want to encourage them to bring their DIY skills. A dish to pass works too ;)

4. Fold the invitation to turn it into a small book (aw!) by folding it in half twice.

5. Fill out the RSVP postcards and put a stamp on them if you want. These are regulation postcard size, so make sure they’re printed out on paper that’s hefty enough to mail.

6. Slip the RSVP postcards into the folded invitations and stuff them into your envelope. Note: Depending on how thick or heavy your invitation paper is, you might want to throw an extra stamp on these.

7. Mail your invites out and wait for those RSVPs to roll in. They’re as useful as they are cute. You’ll be able to track what book everyone’s bringing so there aren’t any repeats AND you’ll know how much red or white to buy. Thumbs up, indeed!

Like the card says, the new rules of book club are simple: read, sip, chat, laugh and (this one’s very important) have fun. We’ll help you out with the last part in a follow-up post with activities and a DIY project for your page-turning par-tay — stay tuned for that!

In the meantime, we think it’s time you entered our giveaway with Ecco Domani to bring an extra (extra!) special something to your everyday book break. One of you will snag an iPad Mini, a one year subscription to online e-library Oyster, and (to really get into the book swap spirit!) a couple of our favorite reads, Big Book of Chic and Lidia’s Favorite Recipes.

Click here to enter by Like-ing Ecco Domani on Facebook!

Cheers! We know what we’ll be sipping at our next Brit + Co. book swap…

What book would YOU bring to our book swap? Share with us in the comments below!

Full contest terms here.