The Book-of-the-Month Club, that bastion of literary good taste, has taken a tip from the likes of Amazon.com and established a retail outlet on the Web. The club's online arm represents its first new distribution channel in more than 70 years.
The club's site officially opened for business Monday, although it has been in beta for the past six months. It provides members with access to more than 2,000 "carefully reviewed books, which survive a rigorous editorial review process by the club's editors."
Spokeswoman Colleen Murphy said the Book-of-the-Month Club's 4 million members don't have time to read all reviews available or keep track of the nearly 50,000 new titles published each year. "Our competitive advantage is that we screen all the books we offer," she observed.
While most of these books represent "best of breed" in a variety of genres, Murphy said, the club is a bit more adventurous in its tastes than nonmembers might suspect. "We offered Madonna's 'Sex' book," she noted. "A lot of our members registered their feelings about that."
The club is owned by Time Warner, but the online service isn't part of Pathfinder. And while the club would like to be competitive with Amazon and Barnes & Noble, Murphy admitted it could not match their discounts. "Only a very small percentage of our sales will be online," she said.
That shouldn't hurt business. The Book-of-the-Month Club posted record earnings last year of more than US$300 million. Average members are in their 40s, married, reasonably well-educated, living in the suburbs, and drawing a pretty good-sized paycheck.
"We believe the value and success of the Book-of-the-Month Club is that our editors select only the best books available and present them to the public," editor in chief Greg Tobin said in a statement. Added Murphy: "We sell plenty of Stephen King."
