A guide to the Doubleday Book Club

The Book of the Month club, is a United States based book club, which offers a new book each month to its customers. It was founded in 1926 by Harry Scherman, a former copywriter for an advertising agency, who wanted to overcome the problems of drumming up interest in newly published books.

History

Now known as the Doubleday Book Club, the organisation was formerly the flagship book club of the Book of the Month Club Inc. until that company merged with Doubleday Direct in 2000. Founder Harry Schermann had already found success as the creator of the 'Little Leather Library' in 1916, whilst, still working as a copywriter for the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency. Along with his partners Max Sackheim and Charles and Albert Boni, he began a mail ordering service, which offered '30 Great Books for $2.98'. They sold 40,000,000 copies in the first five years. In 1920, they set up their own advertising agency, which was devoted to the marketing of books. Scherman then founded the Book of the Month club with Sackheim and Robert Haas in 1926, as a solution to the problems in marketing new works. Scherman hoped that the venture would become a "standard brand", explaining later, "it establishes itself as a sound selector of good books and sells by means of its own prestige. Thus, the prestige of each new title need not be built up before becoming acceptable."

Growth to present day

Membership
The club started with 4,000 subscribers, but grew within 20 years to 550,000. The success of the brand helped to reinforce itself so much, that it began to be used as a trademark type endorsement for new books. To be selected for Book of the Month, was in itself a promotional tool. Membership of the club, is usually offered on terms of a 'negative response' system. This means that the member is sent a book on a specific date if they do not contact the club to cancel the chosen book. Promotional Price
New members will usually be offered an enticement of a selection of books to pick from at a special introductory price. For example, five books for 99cents. They then agree to buy a certain number of books, within a specific time frame, in order to complete their agreement. The club can now be accessed online, a version which requires one purchase per month, and the customer can leave at any time. The customer can build and manage a book list similar to that operated by online DVD clubs.