The best community building books

Community building has become a hot topic, not because of just hype but people more than ever are looking for private space where they can interact with other people of similar interests. There have been massive funding and acquisition announcements for tools and platforms that can help build communities as well as authors writing books.

1. Microsoft is in talks to acquire Discord for $10B.
2. Reddit - the front page of the internet that recently raised $250M in February.
3. Circle a platform to build communities that raised $6M.
4. Bevy a virtual events platform raised $40M in March.

So I curated a list of 20 books that one should read if they are looking to build communities as a creator or a startup for their products. In no particular order:

1. The Art of Community: Building the New Age of Participation

Published 2012 | Author Jono Bacon

2. The Business of Belonging - How to Make Community your Competitive Advantage by David Spinks, the community guru, founder of CMX.

Published 2021 | Author - David Spinks

3. The Great Good Place - A New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice "Third places," or "great good places," are the many public places where people can gather, put aside the concerns of home and work (their first and second places), and hang out simply for the pleasures of good company and lively conversation.

Published 1999 | Author - Ray Oldenburg

4. Superfans - The Easy Way to Stand Out, Grow Your Tribe, and Build a Successful Business. Followers may "like" an Instagram post. Customers may buy a product. But "Superfans" will be your biggest supporters. They will promote you and your products because they know you have made a difference in their lives. They will tell their friends. They will send you encouraging emails.

Published 2019 | Author - Pat Flynn

5. The Perfect Store: Inside eBay - Adam Cohen's fascinating look inside eBay is essential read for anyone trying to figure out what's next. If you want to truly understand the Internet economy, The Perfect Store is indispensable.

Published 2003 | Author - Adam Cohen

6. Get Together - How to build a community with your people. Although communities feel magical, they don't come together by magic. Get Together is a practical and heartfelt guide to cultivating a community.

Published 2019 | Authors - Bailey Richardson, Kevin Huynh and Kai Elmer Sotto

7. The Business Value of Developer Relations - How and Why Technical Communities are Key to your Success. Discover the true value of Developer Relations as you learn to build and maintain positive relationships with your developer community.

Published 2018 | Author - Mary Thengvall

8. The Power of Ritual - Turning Everyday Activities into Soulful Practices.

Published 2020 | Casper ter Kuile

9. Community Building on the Web - Secret Strategies for Successful Online Communities. Community Building on the Web introduces and examines nine essential design strategies for putting together vibrant, welcoming online communities.

Published 2000 | Author - Amy Jo Kim

10. Community-In-a-Box - How to Build Event-Driven Professional Communities. A practical guide for community builders on building and scaling professional communities that thrive and transform the lives of the people within them through virtual and in-person events.

Published 2020 | Author - Mark Birch

11. The Indispensable Community - how top community professionals have stopped chasing engagement instead built communities neither they nor their members, can live without.

Published 2018 | Author - Richard Millington

12. Working in Public - The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software. Open source communities are increasingly centred around the work of individual developers rather than teams. Similarly, if creators, rather than discrete communities, are going to become the epicentre of our online social systems, we need to better understand how they work and we can do so by studying what happened to open source.

Published 2020 | Author - Nadia Eghbal

13. The Culting of Brands- Turn Your Customers into True Believers.

Published 2005 | Author - Douglas Atkin

14. Buzzing Communities - How to Build Bigger, Better, and More Active Online Communities. Buzzing Communities cuts through the fluff to offer a clear process for creating thriving online communities.

Published 2012 | Author - Richard Millington

15. People Powered - How Communities Can Supercharge Your Business, Brand, and Teams. Harness the power of communities, both inside and outside of your organization, to drive value and revenue, activate your employees’ and customers’ talents, and create a highly engaged, loyal customer base.

Published 2019 | Author - Jono Bacon

16. Fierce Loyalty - Unlocking the DNA of Wildly Successful Communities.

Published 2012 | Author - Sarah Robinson

17. The Art of Community - Charles Vogl outlines seven ancient principles organizations can follow to create robust, thriving, positive communities.

Published 2016 | Author - Charles Vogl

18. Building Brand Communities - The guide for organizations gathering people to transform their brand and field.

Published 2020 | Authors - Carrie Melissa Jones and Charles Vogl

19. The Art of Gathering - How We Meet and Why It Matters. In The Art of Gathering, Priya Parker argues that the gatherings in our lives are lackluster and unproductive—which they don't have to be. We rely too much on routine and the conventions of gatherings when we should focus on distinctiveness and the people involved.

Published 2018 | Author - Priya Parker

20. The Power of Habit - Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business.

Published - 2014 | Author - Charles Duhigg

That's all from my side. If you've read a book on community building, belonging, building an audience and you don't see it in the list above please comment and I will update this list.

Thanks.