What is the Hipster Book Club?
The Hipster Book Club (or the HBC) is a collective of readers and writers passionate about discussing literature in all its forms. This website is dedicated to reviewing both past and current works, learning more about writing and writers, and discussing various topics in literature, whether they are thoughtful or irreverent. We recognize that some people read analytically and others read purely for entertainment, and we strive to find a balance between the two because we all essentially read out of a passion for books. Thus, some of our articles will be serious, others will be humorous, and others will be extremely personal.

Why is the Hipster Book Club set up differently from other literary blogs? Where's the comments area?
We're not a blog. That means we don't set up our articles in descending order, we don't have a comments area, and we run all our articles through copy editing.

How did the Hipster Book Club come to exist?
This website was created as an offshoot of the LiveJournal community of the same name. Formed in October, 2003, the Hipster Book Club LiveJournal community grew from word of mouth alone and boasts members from a variety of nations, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Germany, Spain, Japan, Honduras, and the Netherlands.

The website began when one community member asked why a good comprehensive website didn’t exist to focus on book reviews and literary topics…so we decided to make one.

What sort of material does the HBC cover?
We cover many different forms of literature, including novels, nonfiction, poetry, chapbooks, or even short stories published online. We strive to inform the online world about literature that may be unfamiliar to them and to provide others with a place to discuss the works they’ve discovered.

What sort of material does the HBC NOT cover?
We do not review magazines (single stories from literary journals are exempt), serialized comic books, or self-published books/books from print-on-demand publishers.

Can I e-mail you my rant/manifesto extolling the virtues of self-publishing?
No.

What makes this site so “hipster”?
Well, obviously, we’re better than you.

Just kidding. The term “hipster” is and always will be used in an ironic sense for us. We don’t consider ourselves particularly “hip.” Instead, we strive to be accessible to people of all ages without pandering only to what is popular. We do, however, bear some of the elitism associated with what people consider hipster: We believe that if you don’t read books, you’re totally not cool.

Why are so many of your reviews about older books or books that came out a few years ago?
A book’s age doesn’t make it less worthy of one’s time, nor does it make the book particularly well-known to the general population. Every month, we also include at least one book that is considered an HBC Classic—that is, a book considered by the staff to be a must-read work in twentieth century literature.

How do I “join” the club?
Being here is a good first step. If you have a LiveJournal, contribute to the HBC LiveJournal community. And if you want to write for us, please follow the guidelines for submission.

I’m a writer/publisher/publicist. How do I get you to write a review of my work or do a story on an author?
We’ll gladly take a look at what you’re pitching, but we make no promises to review the work or cover the author. Please see the submissions guidelines for more details.

I’m a writer whose book you negatively reviewed. Why would you publish such scathing reviews of books? Why not publish only positive reviews?
We publish negative reviews because negative reviews are just as valid as positive ones. We publish negative reviews because we are a book review site, not a book recommendation site. The HBC makes sure all of our reviews, negative or otherwise, contain a thoughtful analysis of the book with examples of our points. You will be told honestly and exactly why the reviewer likes or doesn't like a book.

As a writer, you should understand the importance of criticism from your audience. Any writer worth reading knows how to use a negative review to become better at his or her craft. If you can't handle a negative review, you have two options: either 1) grow a pair or 2) stop writing books. We are not kidding. Seriously.

How do you obtain revenue?
We receive some revenue through advertisements, but if you have any ideas for the site to make more, send an e-mail to hipsterbookclub@gmail.com.