Join The Club!

Book clubs are nothing new, observes Nichole Bernier, but “what is new, however, is that book clubs’ appetite for reading — and the power of their consumption — is becoming a publishing influencer”:

Paula Hubert, founder of Book Movement, left a career in the literary department at William Morris to monetize the marriage of book clubs and authors online. “I saw that book clubs were creating these bestsellers, and publishers were desperate to get at them but nobody could connect them,” she says. Her website now has 35,000 clubs as members, and offers book promotions and giveaways, author interviews, book of the month designation, and ads in its email newsletters. Similarly, TLC book tours is a paid online vehicle to reach readers – but in this case, via book-reviewing bloggers, whose audience is avid book club readers.

One drawback:

The elephant in the living room is the cost of this marketing. For most authors who haven’t achieved bestselling status, the onus falls on them to pay for these promotions, or to convince their publisher to do so. For many, this is a final financial straw in an artistic career that was supposed to have been about putting words on the page, but morphed into social media management by day and visits to book clubs by night.

There’s still time to catch up with the Dish’s second Book Club selection, On Looking by Alexandra Horowitz. Read about the book here and buy it here.