Creating On-line Community Via. BBS (Bulletin Board)
 

As some of you already know, my family owns and operates an on-line bookstore. It's only a few months old and we get a few orders a month....In an effort to gain exposure,
we're considering creating an on-line community by means of a Bulletin Board.
Basically it would be similar to the one here, a bulletin board where users can log in, post, and respond to one another.
Of course topics would be on the order of book collecting, reading, authors, publishing, news, etc.

How much time/cost would be associated with this type of project. What's the software involved? There's also maintenance and upkeep. any ideas? thanks in advance.

Probably more than you want to get involved with. Can you "attach" to an existing board with users, and become something like a site sponsor for the other board?

The software is inexpensive, but the amount of time you will spend with the project will surprise you. If your time is valuable, it may be a bad idea.

Plus the cost of bandwidth when you start a "book-club-girls" thread.

If you do go this route, don't have an OT forum.

I mean, look at the crazies this place attracts.

"Your Honor, the defense rests...."

I wouldn't bother. You'll get old farts with mint-condition desireable first-editions that rarely get read. Then there'll be the guys with paperbacks printed on recycled newsprint that insist their books are superior in every way to the first editions, even though their books are sold by the pound. Then there'll be the guys with 3rd and 4th editions with frayed corners and re-bound bindings. And there's no escaping the guys with the first edition but unpopular books, who will recover their books to pass them off as Gutenberg Bibles, Hemingways, and other rare gems. These guys will eventually start their own BBS and think their ***** doesn't stink. They'll constantly be fighting and clambering for superiority of their own literary agendas and threaten to stop buying from you if you don't support their group the most. Too much trouble!

http://www.phpbb.com/ is a good place to start. some hosting companies will preinstall bbs software for you. there are web based interfaces to manage them.

Re: Creating On-line Community Via. BBS (Bulletin Board)
 

The software used here is quite popular. If you look at the bottom of the screen you'll see:

Powered by: vBulletin Version 2.3.5
Copyright ©2000 - 2005, Jelsoft Enterprises Limited.

I agree with the others as I don't think the effort is worth it.

Probably better to start a blog on the subject of books and have people check in on a regular basis to see what you are saying.