Reading Circles: live, together, on your own copy
Schedule a live session around any title — a read-aloud, a discussion, a listen-along — and everyone who joins follows the host's position in real time. The host doesn't stream the book; each attendee's device shows their own copy, watermarked to them, moving in step with the host's. No two attendees are ever looking at the same underlying file, and nobody has to pretend otherwise.
A grandparent schedules a Reading Circle to read a picture book to their grandchildren. The call is a plain link — the grandchildren don't need an IndieStarlight account, a purchase, or even to know what IndieStarlight is. They just click the link and watch and listen along while everyone talks over video, the same way they would in the same room.
Built for people who already know each other
A Reading Circle can be a two-person call between an author and one dedicated reader, or a standing weekly session for a family or a group of friends. Guests without an account can always join a public session — the access control is a long, unguessable link, not a login wall — because the whole point is that the people you already care about shouldn't need to sign up for anything to spend time with you around a book, an album, or a film.
Built for people who don't, yet
The same sessions are open to the public when a host wants them to be. Strangers who love the same series find each other in a live discussion, keep talking in a small breakout after the session ends, and come back because a specific host's sessions became a standing appointment worth keeping — not because a notification told them to.
What we won't do
We won't fake a synchronized stream by handing two people the same file — that would defeat the entire point of watermarking every copy to the person who bought it. We won't manufacture urgency, hide a real capacity limit behind a fake one, or use streak mechanics that punish someone for missing a session. A shared experience here means what it says.