The 20^th Century was the book clubs century. With the meteoric rise of ePublishing, how will book clubs fare in this century?

Book Clubs were an effective way to provide cheaper books to a fixed audience. The system was simple. The book club would strike a deal with the publisher and buy limited rights to certain books. They would then print them on the cheap and distribute them to their members at a lower price than the publisher’s version.

Everybody benefited, the authors sold more books, so did the publishers and the readers got books for cheaper. Or so it seems. Of course the choice of books was dictated by the deals granted by publishers. Some books were off limits, so a change in the book club’s management could result in a drastic change in the quality of books available.

 Yet the readers were tied up and had to read whatever was coming.

 Enters the ePublishing revolution. Suddenly, books are available digitally at a fraction of their price in print, at least for those readers not adverse to technological changes. Some publishers, like Dorchester Publishing lat summer for example, switched to a combination of eBooks and Print on Demand, so no more deals for book clubs there. The cheaper printing is done at the source already. Even if book clubs manage to survive with those publishers adamantly sticking to their paper guns, book clubs have a problem. As pBooks – that’s short for print books, these days – readers die out and a new generation born with eReaders takes over, the Book Clubs future directly depends on their aptitude to adapt.

Actually, they don’t even need to die out. A large percentage of eBook readers are people who simply enjoy the option of reading with larger fonts, a definite perk when one is finally granted the middle age treat of long sightedness and glasses become indispensable to read the menu at the restaurant. Actually, menu should be available on eReaders as well soon J

What are the options for book clubs in the digital age? Audio books are getting popular, so there might be a market there, though it depends on finding a way to rerecord for cheaper without affecting the quality of the recording.

 Or they could follow the librarians lead. Libraries are now rallying to find technical solutions to enable lending eBooks, as was amply demonstrated during the last American Librarian Association annual conference last June. Book clubs could strike deals to buy rights by bundle at a discounted price and offer discounted eBooks to their members.

Only the future will tell. What is virtually certain however, is that in the other kind of book clubs, the kind where people actually meet to discuss the actual content of books, some of the hot topics will soon be downloading problems and comparing eReaders types and models.

 The new popular book clubs, the virtual kind, where writers actively participate as an indispensable part of their marketing strategy are flourishing in this digital age, but, apart fort the name similarity,  these have nothing in common with their 20^th century namesake.

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