By MARTIN ARNOLD
Everyone seems to be getting into the book-club act, and it's probably a good
thing, too, since perhaps the only upbeat note in a rather flat sales season
this spring and summer for book publishing has been the apparent success of the
post-Oprah clubs, even if the clubs don't quite fill the void she left.
Since Oprah Winfrey bowed out in April, we've had book clubs popping up from USA Today, the "Today" show, "Good Morning America" and "Live With Regis and Kelly," all to the good for sales and, therefore, for authors.
Perhaps the most interesting new club is on the way. Essence, the pre-eminent magazine for black women, is announcing in its October issue that it will join the crush with its own book club, and will offer its first four selections. The monthly magazine has a circulation of 1.1 million and claims a readership of 7 million, numbers that are impressive although not as abundant as television's volume.
But what the Essence Book Club will bring to book publishing is a population obviously accustomed to reading. Moreover, Essence has a reputation for credibility among its readers that apparently transfers into sales of products it advises. So why not books? Particularly since the Essence club is starting up at a time when mainstream book publishers are increasingly quarrying for books by and about blacks in the realization that there is a growing black middle class whose members are hungry for reading relevant to them.
All Essence's selections will be books about the African-American experience, and selections will be displayed in the magazine quarterly. Unlike in the other clubs, the "members" — the magazine's readers — will help make the selections. Like the television book clubs, the Essence club will only recommend titles to buy; it won't distribute them. There are other African-American book clubs that do distribute, the largest being the Black Expressions Book Club, which was started in 1999 with the expectation of 5,000 initial members. About 15,000 joined. In just over a year, the club grew to 150,000 members, and it now has 250,000, said its editor, Carol M. Mackey.
The figures certainly indicate that a great many African-Americans are hungry for reading material about them. Black Expressions offers books at large discounts (usually 30 percent, but sometimes 50 percent) that are recommended in the 17 catalogs (plus two extra for rapacious buyers) that it sends members annually. One joins by purchasing three books for $1 each and committing to buy four more in two years.
Obviously, the only cost for the Essence club is the price of the magazine. Essence brings to its club a long tradition of involvement with books. Each issue has a book section that includes the Essence best-seller list, which is compiled from sales in 60 black bookstores and which in turn is prominently displayed in such stores.
Patrik Henry Bass, the magazine's book editor, said, "The moment Oprah retired her book club, we decided to go ahead with ours, but we wanted to let the dust settle a bit." He added: "We're going to encourage the 60 stores to stock our book club selections. Our readers trust us. We believe we've set the standard for coverage of black authors and books about African-American culture."
The first books to be recommended, in the October issue, will be black classics chosen by Mr. Bass and his colleagues. They are Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man" (Vintage), first published in 1952; "Brown Girl, Brownstones" by Paule Marshall (Feminist Press), 1959; "Daddy Was a Number Runner" by Louise Meriwether (Feminist Press), 1970; and Gloria Naylor's "Mama Day" (Vintage Contemporaries), 1988. Readers will then have 30 days to vote — via e-mail or even postcard — on which of the four they want to discuss in the magazine's online chat line at www.essence.com.
Subsequently, readers will be asked to submit nominations for the club's selections, which will then be determined by a combination of members' submissions and a group of the magazine's editors. Then readers will again vote on which selection they want to read and discuss in the chat room. The magazine will conduct a Web site chat for members with the author if living, or a guest author if the writer is deceased. (For the next quarter the club will ask readers to nominate biographies for the list.)
Whatever else, this will be a fascinating experiment in a sort of participatory democracy involving a magazine's editors and readers. Mr. Bass said, "It's the perfect relationship between a publication providing service to its readers and the readers giving us back their input."
Will this sell books? Well, it can't hurt. Crystal Bobb-Semple, owner of Brownstone Books, a black bookstore in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, said, "A lot of my customers come in with the Essence best-seller list in hand, and a lot come in after `Good Morning America' and the `Today' show, so this will absolutely help." She added that even though Essence is a women's magazine, men come in with the Essence list and buy nonfiction on it.
Informed of the new club, Emma Rodgers, owner of the Black Images Book Bazaar in Dallas, said: "We'll add an Essence section to our book club displays. This will help drive traffic into the store. People come in now with the magazine asking for books on its best-seller list or books they read about in the magazine."
"Bookstores are being challenged now because the economy is down — the city's only children's bookstore closed recently," she said, noting that her store was holding an E. Lynn Harris book signing yesterday. "We pay a lot of bills after E. Lynn leaves." She said she thought this new book club would also help pay some bills.
Probably the most exciting thing in book publishing in recent years has been the emergence of African-Americans as a powerful force. Book clubs are rightly part of that. That book clubs in general are good for the business of making books is undisputed. They are helpful to laboring authors and are often great for sales. But implicit in the idea of a book club is the need for mass validation. So one wonders what the clubs' presence will do for that occasional, lonely book of high literary merit. Not much.