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How Novelist Joshua Henkin Joined 175 Book Clubs

By Jason Chambers

DH: I led a book club for about two years. It’s the art of just letting people talk….and intervening with your own talk if the conversation flags or loses its vector on the book.

Once I discovered an author with a first book that I thought our group would love. I asked their publisher if the writer could visit us.
What I got from the pub’s marketing department was a one-sentence answer: “How many copies can you sell?”
Well…our club had 15 members on a good day. That’s really as large as a book club can be. Any larger and the group will end up being dominated by one or two assertive voices. The milder personalities will get buried and then it’s not like a book family anymore.
I think this pub wanted me to say “200 copies” before they would even glance in my direction. I’m very glad to say that their book tanked.
So when Joshua Henkin sent me a link to a Daily Beast piece about how he had visited at least 175 book clubs to talk about his novel, Matrimony; I regretted that I didn’t know him when I was with the book club. I would have invited him.
Josh’s Matrimony is a beautifully nuanced take on marriage and friendship that I reviewed in Three Guys a couple of months ago. Josh writes rigorously crafted prose in a style that’s sympathetic to the fiction of Raymond Carver or Tobias Wolff with Flaubert lurking in the background as a distant ancestor. You can read my review here.
JH is working on his next novel right now. He’s a writer that takes great care. He doesn’t like to go on to writing the next sentence until he is satisfied with the one he is working on. I don’t want to rush him but I am dying to lay my hands on a galley of his new book.
If you’re a member of a minority group, then you know that you can’t depend on the majority that’s on the outside to get your message across. Minorities only make progress when they speak out for themselves. Maybe writers should consider themselves a minority group in that sense.
That would mean that writers should work on outreach to readers for themselves…as well as outreach to each other. Publishers are great agencies of culture…but maybe it’s like expecting a bunch of straight people to explain drag queens.
Here’s the Daily Beast link to Josh’s experience at book clubs. And don’t forget to consider reading Matrimony.

July 13th, 2009 | Category: Reviews
  • jonathan evison

    . . . nice post, dennis . . . and great work, joshua! . . . i knew you were a gamer when you first commented on one of DH's reviews. . . any publicist that measures the effectiveness of book clubs by the number direct sales is totally missing the point about book clubs . . . the fact is, of the 30 or so book clubs i've atttended personally, only half the people actually buy the book, the other half borrow it or get it from the library . . . but the point is the exponetial word of mouth . . .book clubs overlap all over the place . . .i've had people who were in three different books clubs recommend it to ALL THREE . . . i've had groups in wisconsin and los angeles tell me their group is reading the book because their cousin or friend or whatnot in seattle met me at a book club and said the experience was great . . . as a rule, most book clubs i've attended don't buy hard covers . . .HOWEVER, attend their clubs in person and they'll buy the next five hard covers you publish . . .

  • jonathan evison

    . . . nice post, dennis . . . and great work, joshua! . . . i knew you were a gamer when you first commented on one of DH's reviews. . . any publicist that measures the effectiveness of book clubs by the number direct sales is totally missing the point about book clubs . . . the fact is, of the 30 or so book clubs i've atttended personally, only half the people actually buy the book, the other half borrow it or get it from the library . . . but the point is the exponetial word of mouth . . .book clubs overlap all over the place . . .i've had people who were in three different books clubs recommend it to ALL THREE . . . i've had groups in wisconsin and los angeles tell me their group is reading the book because their cousin or friend or whatnot in seattle met me at a book club and said the experience was great . . . as a rule, most book clubs i've attended don't buy hard covers . . .HOWEVER, attend their clubs in person and they'll buy the next five hard covers you publish . . .

  • DH

    Joshua, Jonathan…great insights on the word-of-mouth effectiveness of book clubs, I know of members who save the books they have covered on a special shelf in their libraries. Why are publishers cool to the idea of writer participation in book clubs? Guess: because they can't quantify the results on their bottom line. Also, you're right JE…the ideal book club format is the trade paperback.Maybe writers need to get over the idea that being published in cloth confers more "prestige". Being read confers more prestige. :)

  • DH

    Joshua, Jonathan…great insights on the word-of-mouth effectiveness of book clubs, I know of members who save the books they have covered on a special shelf in their libraries. Why are publishers cool to the idea of writer participation in book clubs? Guess: because they can't quantify the results on their bottom line.

    Also, you're right JE…the ideal book club format is the trade paperback.

    Maybe writers need to get over the idea that being published in cloth confers more "prestige". Being read confers more prestige. :)

  • jonathan evison

    . . .i'll be honest, DH, i prefer TPO's to hardcover . . .much much better for audience building, and despite the fact that i hear people say nobody reviews paperbacks, i found that lulu got great coverage . . . the thing about the hardback is that the royalty rate is higher–in some cases twice as high as the paperback rate . . . add the nearly double retail price, and the writer is making four times the money per book . . . hard to argue with that . . . as far as prestige goes– for me, hardback hold none . . .i hate dust jackets, they bug me . . . and hardback are heavy . . . you know what got me off hardbacks for good? . . . walking around san francisco with don delillo's underworld . . .that fucking hardback gorilla nearly busted my back . . . i wanted to start tearing the pages out as i went just to lighten the load . . .

  • jonathan evison

    . . .i'll be honest, DH, i prefer TPO's to hardcover . . .much much better for audience building, and despite the fact that i hear people say nobody reviews paperbacks, i found that lulu got great coverage . . . the thing about the hardback is that the royalty rate is higher–in some cases twice as high as the paperback rate . . . add the nearly double retail price, and the writer is making four times the money per book . . . hard to argue with that . . . as far as prestige goes– for me, hardback hold none . . .i hate dust jackets, they bug me . . . and hardback are heavy . . . you know what got me off hardbacks for good? . . . walking around san francisco with don delillo's underworld . . .that fucking hardback gorilla nearly busted my back . . . i wanted to start tearing the pages out as i went just to lighten the load . . .

  • DH

    JE, that's a great inside look at the writer's pros and cons of cloth vs trade paperback. But I wanted to qualify that an ideal trade paperback book club choice can outsell its cloth version 10x over. That's happened with friend Benioff's "City of Thieves". My experience with "Kite Runner" is that it sold roughly 50x more in paperback than it did in cloth…before the movie.I'm still fixated on the image of you in SF…bearing the weight of Underworld on your shoulders…like Aeneas carrying his father out of ruined Troy on his back…you are carrying DeLillo…sounds epic to me JE, in the best sense…

  • DH

    JE, that's a great inside look at the writer's pros and cons of cloth vs trade paperback. But I wanted to qualify that an ideal trade paperback book club choice can outsell its cloth version 10x over. That's happened with friend Benioff's "City of Thieves". My experience with "Kite Runner" is that it sold roughly 50x more in paperback than it did in cloth…before the movie.

    I'm still fixated on the image of you in SF…bearing the weight of Underworld on your shoulders…like Aeneas carrying his father out of ruined Troy on his back…you are carrying DeLillo…sounds epic to me JE, in the best sense…

  • joshua henkin

    great discussion here, and i agree: measuring the effectiveness by direct sales is both difficult and not to the point. it's all cumulative, and in general you get back what you put in. i talk to a lot of book clubs by phone these days (it's hard to get to montana from brooklyn), and those work well and it's certainly more efficient than driving somewhere (i have to be protective of my writing time), but when you drive somewhere, when you go in person, you make a connection that's much more sustained, and you get readers for the long-term. i think in general with publicity if you start asking yourself, did this work, did that work, then you're not going to be happy. i look at the big picture. case in point (and i have many, many such examples): vintage sent me on a paperback tour, and in a couple of places i was at there were five people at the reading, maybe ten, and i'm staying in a hotel in some place where i know no one, saying to myself, what am i doing here? but then i find out from my publicist that at these stores where no one showed up to my reading but where my book was in the window and the store workers were handselling it, the book was on the store's bestseller list for several weeks running. the same goes for book clubs. maybe a particular meeting doesn't go that well–you still don't know what can come of it. someone enjoys the discussion and they're at work the next day talking to a colleague, who's also in a book club. these things add up

  • joshua henkin

    great discussion here, and i agree: measuring the effectiveness by direct sales is both difficult and not to the point. it's all cumulative, and in general you get back what you put in. i talk to a lot of book clubs by phone these days (it's hard to get to montana from brooklyn), and those work well and it's certainly more efficient than driving somewhere (i have to be protective of my writing time), but when you drive somewhere, when you go in person, you make a connection that's much more sustained, and you get readers for the long-term. i think in general with publicity if you start asking yourself, did this work, did that work, then you're not going to be happy. i look at the big picture. case in point (and i have many, many such examples): vintage sent me on a paperback tour, and in a couple of places i was at there were five people at the reading, maybe ten, and i'm staying in a hotel in some place where i know no one, saying to myself, what am i doing here? but then i find out from my publicist that at these stores where no one showed up to my reading but where my book was in the window and the store workers were handselling it, the book was on the store's bestseller list for several weeks running. the same goes for book clubs. maybe a particular meeting doesn't go that well–you still don't know what can come of it. someone enjoys the discussion and they're at work the next day talking to a colleague, who's also in a book club. these things add up

  • jonathan evison

    . . . you've got it right, josh, it's all cumulative . . . i always judge a bookstore not by the crowd i draw there (because frankly, more often than not, that's mostly my doing) by how many of its employees show up at events . . .best five stores i've ever read at: skylight books in l.a., third palce books in seattle, eagle harbor books here on the island, and university books in seattle . . .

  • jonathan evison

    . . . you've got it right, josh, it's all cumulative . . . i always judge a bookstore not by the crowd i draw there (because frankly, more often than not, that's mostly my doing) by how many of its employees show up at events . . .best five stores i've ever read at: skylight books in l.a., third palce books in seattle, eagle harbor books here on the island, and university books in seattle . . .

  • JC

    It's hard from the bookstore side as well. For a lot of mid to low profile authors the book signing can be a crap shoot. The buyer and events coordinator and other employees may be thrilled with the event, and may be pushing the book, but it's easier to push a book on someone than it is to get them to show up when and where you want them. Sometimes the timing is off, sometimes the publicity misfires, and we all know that coop doesn't come close to paying for advertising anymore. I like JH's comment about small crowds in places where the book really was successful in the long run. It's easy to be cynical and disappointed with immediate event results, but it's not necessarily indicative of the overall results. And it's a far cry easier to sell a book with a "signed by author" sticker on it than one without. Even if the buyer has never heard of it.

  • JC

    It's hard from the bookstore side as well. For a lot of mid to low profile authors the book signing can be a crap shoot. The buyer and events coordinator and other employees may be thrilled with the event, and may be pushing the book, but it's easier to push a book on someone than it is to get them to show up when and where you want them. Sometimes the timing is off, sometimes the publicity misfires, and we all know that coop doesn't come close to paying for advertising anymore. I like JH's comment about small crowds in places where the book really was successful in the long run. It's easy to be cynical and disappointed with immediate event results, but it's not necessarily indicative of the overall results. And it's a far cry easier to sell a book with a "signed by author" sticker on it than one without. Even if the buyer has never heard of it.