New Breed of Authors Hustles Own Books to Clubs

When did book clubs become book clubs? That is, how did the book industry evolve from a business model defined by commercial reprinters like Book of the Month Club and The Literary Guild, to one heavily dependent on groups of book-loving - and book-buying - amateurs?

At whatever point we crossed the line from definition #1 to definition #2, the reading circle has become a driving force in book marketing, and the author who knows how to work the clubs has become a formidable promotional machine.

"The focus on book clubs has spurred the evolution of a new breed: the author-hustler, the writer who succeeds in large part because of door-to-door salesmanship," says Mickey Pearlman, a "professional book club facilitator" as Francesca Mari, blogging in The Daily Beast, describes him. In The Book-Club Hustlers Mari details Pearlman's very professional approach to what most of us thing of as an informal and loosely organized activity.

Pearlman offers four-hour book-marketing seminars (for $500), focusing on "how to creatively market your book on the Web and in other outlets"—one of those outlets being, of course, book groups. "You’re building an interest in you," Pearlman says, “so they’ll be very likely to buy your next book."

Mari cites the activity of a typical self-promoter, Joshua Henkin, who has made the rounds of more than 175 groups. “With 10 people in each group, that’s 1,750 books sold right there.” Another, Adriana Trigiani, works the clubs by phone, as does Chris Bohjalian. Laura Dave even does hers via Skype.

You can't fault authors for wanting to hustle their goods. But you might get a little squeamish to think that authors and publishers may deliberately be shaping books to appeal to book clubs. Mari reports how one author, Robert Alexander, hired an editor after his novel had been turned down fifteen times.

She told him to shoot for a book-club 'gem', to cut the manuscript from 460 pages to 250 and hone in on the historical fiction. Alexander did and got three offers in eight days. His Viking and Penguin contracts, he says, even state that his books should be around 250 pages. The Kitchen Boy is now in its 22nd printing, and was optioned to be made into a movie by Glen Williamson, the man behind American Beauty and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

We referred to book club members as "amateurs" - by which we mean, literally, those who love books more as a pastime than a profession. But in fact clubs have evolved far beyond the cliché of schoolmarmish intellectuals reading Proust over tea sandwiches. Chelsea J. Carter blogging on PaperBackSwap.com says, "Around the country, book clubs also have become networking tools for young professionals." There is even an instructional book for clubbers: The Book Club Companion: A Comprehensive Guide to the Reading Group Experience by Diana Loevy.

Richard Curtis