Comments on: Marketing: Deseret Book’s book club

By: Wm Morris

Wm Morris — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 16:53:06 +0000

Kent Larsen has extensively documented the LDS retailer ecosystem here at AMV, Brandon. You might check his work out. In terms of insights — I don’t really have any. And in order for me to get some, I’d have to do some serious market research. And then that means that I’d be doing consulting work for you. And I charge for that because my day job, church calling and other projects have gotten to the point where, sadly, I can no longer offer free marketing advice to folks in the LDS/Mormon sphere (like I used to).

By: Brandon

Brandon — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 20:26:35 +0000

Wm,

You have some interesting insights. Here’s one problem: Deseret Book owns most of the LDS book retailers (including Seagull Book). I’m getting to launch LDSBookstore.com and would love to get some insights from you on how to run a book club. Email me if you’re interested.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Jul 2004 18:05:00 +0000

william (my first name, btw),

my bad. however, DB does have some type of club ‘guide’/magazine that advertises books from other publishers. i know…i signed up for their card…and now i get a magazine every month with stuff from all sorts of publishers.

-lyle

By: William Morris

William Morris — Mon, 05 Jul 2004 17:10:00 +0000

Clark:

I’d be interested in taking part in that conversation. I haven’t read any contemporary Mormon theology outside of Nibley. I too have a non-existent book budget — but unless there are a ton of lurkers out there who speak up I doubt that we have the requisite numbers to make a reasonable offer.

So — why don’t you let us know the timing you’re looking at. A few weeks from now would be better — that way I’ll be able to hit up inter-library loan.

I won’t know until I read it if I want to work discussion of it it into this site, but at the very least, I’ll post comments on Mormon Metaphysics and any other bloggernacle blog that chooses to discuss Ostler.

By: Clark Goble

Clark Goble — Mon, 05 Jul 2004 00:06:00 +0000

I’d love to do a book – either fiction or non-fiction. While my book budget is pretty small to non-existent, I’d certainly pick up a book. Of course I’d love to go through with a group a discussion of Blake Oster’s book. I may start doing that anyway. I consider it a must read for Mormon theology.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 14:29:00 +0000

Hmmm… it’s been quite awhile since I even stepped into a Deseret Book. Any chance they’ll have one of thoes 9 DVDs for 1 cent apiece deals? :) As a joke, I want to get “Cipher In the Snow” for my sister. Every time my sister sees someone acting like a martyr she’ll say: “Look, there’s our little cipher in the snow!”

By: William Morris

William Morris — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 14:03:00 +0000

Lyle:

Charging authors to participate is not an issue for the Deseret Book book clubs — all the selections they choose are titles that they publish. It’s one of the advantages of being both a bookseller and a publisher.

For the other publishers and booksellers: I don’t know because as far as I know none of them support book clubs. Obviously a publisher-supported book club would only feature titles that the company publishes. It gains nothing by including other company’s titles.

The wild card in the Mormon market is Seagull Book and Tape. They could put together a book club that includes titles from different publishers. But I don’t know why they’d charge authors to include their work in the club — it’s in the bookstore’s interest to sell copies of the book — that’s where they’ll make the money, not by charging authors and publishers.

Dave (and by extension Clark):
If Clark has a particular title in mind and he can drum up enough solid commitments to buy the title, I’d be happy to contact the publisher and see if we can cut a deal.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 13:39:00 +0000

can’t say that i like this. do you have any idea how much they ‘charge’ if you want to get your work included in their ‘club’ newsletter/catalogue? Eeek!

-lyle

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 13:30:00 +0000

Great post, WM. The idea strikes me that if publishers or booksellers are willing to grant substantial discounts for a group as small as 8-10 that a Bloggernacle entrepreneur could assemble their own group and do it online. Maybe Clark with his book clubbish ideas for the RPT Blog Club would be interested in this (although his interests, too, run to non-fiction).