What's it like to start and run a forum?

Having run several forums before, I'll have to chime in and say: I don't think it's worth your time. I've never used vBulletin before so I can't weigh in there, but I think you'd be better served just finding a love and sex forum to join rather than make one yourself. There are plenty out there! And then you wouldn't have to worry about the upkeep on the community, advertising the community, and finding people to assist you on top of promoting your book, etc.

Running a good forum is a lot of work. AW makes it look easy to maintain a huge, vibrant, high-quality community, but Mac and her fleet of mods are busting their butts for us on a daily basis.

And you don't have to shell out for vBulletin. There are plenty of free alternatives that are just as good, and don't have the feature-bloat vB has succumbed to over the years.

I created and ran my own forum several years back but I agree with Ashley Leigh- it may not be worth the hassle. The one I made was free to run (it was pretty basic but you could create different sub forums and things and I had quite a bit of fun doing it) but it was a nightmare trying to get people to join it. If you want/ need a lot of members for it to be worthwhile then you'd probably be better off trying to find similar forums and see what they can offer you.

In terms of tech skill, it wasn't too hard. I know a bit of HTML anyway but most of the stuff I needed is also easy to search for online. If I remember rightly, you basically got a template that you filled in when setting up new sub forums, post ranks, layouts...etc. It did take up quite a bit of time but then I was quite young and had the time so was willing to use it. I think it would be possible to set up something like that without spending loads of time on it but generally the more time you put in, the better it'll be.

Those are just a couple of my own experiences that may or may not be worth thinking about. I hope that helps.

I ran a writing forum for about 4 years. The phpBB forum software was free. Hosting costs were modest. No hidden charges. Very easy to set up, but I had some prior experience of building web sites. Maintenance didn't require much effort, mostly daily backups and periodic forum software updates. Site administration didn't need too much effort either, but the membership was relatively small and well behaved.

Oh! I had an idea. If you'd like an alternative way to build a platform for your book (which I am going to assume concerns love and/or sex of some kind), you could consider writing for a website like Eden Cafe? It'd be a way of getting your name out there and you get paid . . . sort of. You're paid in gift cards to their adult store. But at the very least, like I said, it'd get your name out there and name recognition is the first step, right? Right! (Well, I think it's the first step at least.)

Just a suggestion I've been meaning to write something for them for a while now (under my other pseudonym, of course. I try to keep my YA from my adult writing for obvious reasons.)

EDIT: But, if you're set on starting a forum, most of the forums I did was using InvisionFree. It's a free service and it's easy to use. You'll also find lots of free skins and codes and other resources online that you could use to pretty it up.

RobJ said:

Site administration didn't need too much effort either, but the membership was relatively small and well behaved.

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I'm thinking this might be a problem if you're starting a forum on 'love and sex'. I suspect it might require a fair bit of moderator supervision to keep things from getting out of control.

I ran a fairly successful forum for several years using a free platform. I would suggest having a clear plan on how to get the forum populated and active--I would also suggest having engaged moderators from different time zones to keep an eye on it. Mine seemed to have a natural life cycle and boomed for a while but then just emptied out and so I closed it.

I used to run a board. It was through a free forum community. I forget what it used to be called, but.that's where AW used to be when it first started out. That website changes its name. Is it yuku now? I didn't make the switch over so I can't tell you how well that is run.

ETA: it was called ezboard and yes, now its yuku.

If you're not into it seriously, don't spend money! Use SimpleMachines or other free forum software. Use a free webhost, there are some that will let you have a database. The hardest parts are getting people to find it and keeping spammers out of it. Otherwise, it's kind of fun.

I used forumer.com--not perfect but functional.

I have been (well still am for one) a forum mod and admin, so I can offer the following from experience.

The biggest cost can be in your time, not your money. Don't try to be the sole mod/admin. If possible have a team of mods - with powers to at least temp-ban people and to remove posts. Preferably mods who live in different timezones! You don't want to wake up in the morning to find porn spam has overrun the forum while you were sleeping, and there's been a knock-down, drag-out no holds barred fight between a couple of members that should have been nipped in the bud hours ago, and would have been, if only you happened to have a mod in an Australian time zone, or whatever. Oh and three dozen PMs from members complaining about the porn and the fighting, all of which you have to answer.

I also say start small with the number of sub forums you have. I see new forums with a still-tiny number of members start up and give themselves a couple of dozen sub forums, which end up with one or two topics in them, which just make the thing look sparsely populated and dead. Just have a couple of major divisions and sub-divide later if you've got the traffic to do so.

I'm not sure about if it's a good idea for building a platform for a book that's not even out yet. Even for one that's out, unless it's an instant best seller, or you know it's going to be, then it always strikes me as a bit presumptious. "Hey, I've opened a forum, because I know you're all going to want to just talk and talk about me and my new book!" But I'm British, so not "showing off" is kind of the way we roll.