Hi Reader,

In case you missed it on social media, my book club, The Rory Gilmore Book Club is now Friday Night Readers! New name, same book club.

Here's what's going on. (A LOT.)

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Background:

Since 2019, I've run The Literary Lifestyle book blog. It was initially called Jules Buono-- a hobby blog based on my nickname. It evolved into The Literary Lifestyle, and eventually, it became my full-time job once I found my niche and grew it.

In 2020, I started The Rory Gilmore Book Club as the blog's book club, which focused on watching Gilmore Girls and reading the books from the show during the pandemic. It was a hit and has continued to grow each year!

The never-ending passion of literary Gilmore Girls fans never ceases to amaze me. For example, I can't tell you how many readers I've heard from who are non-English speakers, learning and practicing their English as a second language. Amazing!

These have always been my most engaged followers on any channel, and five years later, I still adore our reading challenge as much as day one. Gilmore Girls always makes me feel good, and I want to lean into that feeling more fully.

Why Things Are Changing:

Simply put, it has become too time-consuming, stressful, and expensive to manage a site of The Literary Lifestyle's size in an age when writers are constantly battling algorithms and AI.

There's so, so much I can say about AI's growing effects on all writers, but I'll try to keep it to the basics today.

Generative AI technologies (ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews), trained their machines on the pirated work of writers, and are now using this stolen content to compete against us. Instead of linking to our content, they now provide our information as if it were their own.

The flood of mass-created, AI-generated content on blogs and social media has also made it much harder to compete for attention.

Then, add another layer of complexity for those of us who run our own blogs full-time, as our costs to work as independent publishers can exceed thousands of dollars per month, including expenses such as web developers, graphic designers, IT assistance, email providers, SEO experts, legal fees, insurance, and more.

Google's new algorithm and AI overviews no longer cite or link to professional bloggers' written work the way they once did. And, without people finding us through search (or having huge social media channels with big brand deals), people like me, who are primarily blog writers, are struggling to generate enough page views to cover the costs of informational blogging.

(When you view our free blog posts on our websites, we earn ad revenue and affiliate income.)

This has been an industry-wide issue for approximately two years now. It has cost a massive amount of time and money to try to fix, and it's only worsening by the day in the ever-growing age of AI.

So, I've finally decided that something needs to change. I am going to slightly pivot my work from my broad book blog, The Literary Lifestyle, to focus solely on my community, The Rory Gilmore Book Club.

With the plan I have in place, I can significantly reduce costs and time, allowing me to focus fully on the types of content that you and I both enjoy the most.

I changed the name from The Rory Gilmore Book Club to Friday Night Readers because I wanted a brand that remains fully inspired by Gilmore Girls but is ever so slightly more open-ended. For example, there are closely related topics I'd still like to share with the club, such as books the characters would read today, Fall book lists, and book and coffee pairings, among others.

So, it's a slight pivot from both a broad book blog and a niche book club to just a more niched down community experience.

The Literary Lifestyle blog will remain live indefinitely, featuring over 600 helpful blog posts that you can continue to refer back to at any time. However, I will no longer be micro-managing and updating it on a full-time basis.

Additionally, note that all my social media handles have already been updated to reflect Friday Night Readers.

Members should know that membership is not changing at this time. Paid Patreon members will continue to receive everything they signed up for, but I am considering transitioning this content from Patreon to Substack. More about that below.

(Membership offers unique content you can't find elsewhere, such as Gilmore Girls literary episode guides, and I'm hoping to expand on it, not step back from it!)

Behind the Scenes:

The new name, Friday Night Readers, is a nod to Friday night dinners on Gilmore Girls, but obviously, we would choose reading over dinner with Richard and Emily to start our weekends! It also pays homage to who we are as homebodies.

The color scheme is reflective of the colors of fall. I usually prefer subtle design, but I wanted the logo to be bold and eye-catching this time, both because I want it to stand out and because I'm considering adding merchandise.

You'll find subtle references to Gilmore Girls in the logo: the book, yellow daisies, banner similar to Stars Hollow books, and the little misshapen dots that stand for little coffee drop stains.

However, while it's all inspired by Gilmore Girls, I also hope that people who aren't yet fans of the show, but are cozy, introverted homebodies, can also feel seen here. That's one of my goals in combining my two brands into one new brand and changing the name.

What's Next:

I'm working on setting up a new website and getting started on your content requests over the summer.

I polled my Instagram followers and found that you're very interested in Substack newsletters, podcasts, YouTube videos, and MAYBE a Facebook group. You were not interested in Zoom calls. I get it-- we're introverts!

The new website will feature some blog posts, but the primary focus will be on the book club as a whole, rather than individual blog posts, as was the case with The Literary Lifestyle.

One thing I know for sure is that I want more "fun" content that feels like a great escape from reality for literary Gilmore Girls fans! I have some plans but don't want to say too much until they're more finalized.

Where this leads, I hope you'll follow!

XO, Jules

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Remember, it's a good day to read a book.

-Jules

P.S. - If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reply and ask away! If there are many, I will write you a follow-up email answering them.