Introducing BookFellows: Study Together, Wherever You Are

Some of the best conversations happen when a few people sit down around the same text — a passage of Scripture, a chapter of a novel, a book that changed how someone sees the world — and really dig in. Questions get asked. People disagree well. Someone notices a detail everyone else missed. BookFellows exists to make that kind of study easier to build, easier to share, and easier to experience — on your own, in a small group, or in a full class. And it's free.

What BookFellows is

BookFellows is a platform for building, sharing, and experiencing studies. A study is a set of lessons and thoughtful questions built around a text — most often the Bible, but it works just as well for a novel, a spiritual book, a leadership title, or a topic you want to explore.

You can use it three ways, and switch between them freely:

• Solo — work through a study at your own pace, with your answers and notes saved automatically.
• In a group — share a study with people you choose, see how others answered, and carry the conversation online or in person.
• In a class — set up a class, invite members, assign roles, and lead everyone through the material together.

Everything meets you where you are. Move between your computer and your phone without losing your place, keep your reflections private or share them with attribution — or anonymously — and download clean PDF workbooks whenever someone prefers pen and paper.

Why we built it

The tools people reach for to run a study were never really made for it. Group leaders end up stitching together a document editor, a messaging app, a shared drive, and a stack of photocopies — and spend more energy coordinating logistics than actually leading. Participants lose track of where they are. Good discussion questions get written once and never reused. And a lot of wonderful, hard-won study material simply lives and dies in one person's notebook.

We wanted something built for the whole shape of a study — from the first idea, to the lessons and questions, to a real group working through it together, to the printout for the person who likes the page in their hands. One place, designed around how study actually happens.

That's the heart of BookFellows: lowering the friction so the focus can stay on the text and the people around it.

What you can do

Create a study. Organize lessons and questions with drag-and-drop, add images and attachments, and preview it exactly as participants will see it. When it's ready, release it to your groups — and hand out printable workbooks for anyone who wants them.

Join and participate. Explore the study Library, accept an invitation, and choose to go solo or join a class. Work through the lessons, answer at your own pace, and share what you'd like with the group.

Lead a class. Pick a study, configure it, invite members and assign roles, then facilitate the discussion, watch participation, and support your people along the way.

Try StudyBot (experimental). Describe a study in plain English — the concept, the audience, what you're going for — and StudyBot drafts a first version for you, complete with lessons, discussion questions, and even a custom cover image. You stay in control: review, edit, and refine it until it's yours.

Who it's for

BookFellows works beautifully for churches and small groups — Bible studies, sermon-series studies, spiritual-book reads, and topical explorations. But it isn't limited to that. Book clubs use it for author studies and reading challenges, educators for literature courses and seminars, and plenty of people use it entirely on their own for personal reading and reflection.

If it's a text worth studying, it belongs here.

This is just the beginning

This is our initial release, and we're building it alongside our earliest members. In this phase our goal is simple: deliver real value to the people who join us now, listen closely to your feedback, and make BookFellows better every week.

BookFellows is free to use — unlimited study participation, group membership, study creation, and StudyBot included.

So here's our invitation: sign up, create or join a study, and tell us what you think. If you have a question, an idea, or you just want to talk, reach out anytime at rich@bookfellows.net.

We can't wait to see what you study — and who you study it with.