Why Does Every Famous Woman Have a Book Club Now?

From The Cut:

On Tuesday, in a characteristically delightful interview with Bustle, Dakota Johnson launched her “TeaTime” book club, announcing that her first pick was Beautyland, by Marie-Helene Bertino. It’s a quiet, lyrical book published in January by FSG, about a working-class girl named Adina who is born in 1977 and soon starts being visited each night by aliens from another galaxy who use her to glean information about life on Earth. It’s exactly the kind of slightly off-kilter thing you’d expect Dakota Johnson to be drawn to if, like me, you are a semi-scholar of the queen nepo baby who made a fool of Ellen DeGeneres and has claimed both to love and to be allergic to limes and simply will not promote her wannabe-blockbuster movie, Madame Web, which is what she’s really supposed to be doing interviews about right now. Instead, here she was talking about her book club. “Our book club is literary fiction. It’s not beach reads. It’s not silly,” Johnson told Bustle. “It’s not all female authors, but it is female-forward, and it’s a lot of first-time novelists.” She wants to use the club to bring a bit of gravitas to Instagram: “People need to deep dive into knowledge about specific things rather than talking about what f***** face serum they’re using and thinking that that’s the most important thing in the world.” She then went on to say that she loves face serum.

Every single thing about this announcement piqued my interest. It also got me wondering about why it is, exactly, that so many actresses want to become bookfluencers. For Johnson, it’s not solely about material gain: She hasn’t optioned Beautyland yet, merely thought about how she’d go about adapting it while acknowledging that adaptation is hard. (“I know Margot Robbie’s company is making My Year of Rest and Relaxation. But how the f***? I don’t know how you do that.” Me neither, Dakota!) For others, of course, it’s all about the cash. Reese Witherspoon has been canniest about monetizing her taste in books, creating a business where her monthly picks are sent out in a newsletter and proclaimed on a website, as well as optioned by her production company, Hello Sunshine, which she recently sold to Blackstone Group for $900 million. Making her book-club picks into movies and TV shows is clearly the driving force behind Witherspoon’s club. But she’s also used the idea of being bookish to burnish her image. Being a guru with industry clout on the production side gives Witherspoon a plausible next chapter at 47, an age when acting roles begin to become scarcer for women.

. . . .

Beyond the realm of clubs, there are also celebrities who simply want to be seen reading books, ideally good ones. In this category we find the professionally gorgeous people Kaia Gerber and Kendall Jenner. Gerber technically has a “book club,” which consists of her hosting chats with authors like Emily Ratajkowski on Instagram Live, and she’s also often photographed with books, including titles by Dolly Alderton and Annie Ernaux. But the queen of being photographed with books that both are good and also coordinate with her swimwear is Jenner, and the books she’s seen with are notably obscure, often published by small presses with limited print runs.

In 2019, the author of one of these books, Darcie Wilder, decided to investigate how a Kardashian family member ended up being photographed reading her memoir, Literally Show Me a Healthy Person. After Jenner was shot reading the book, it sold out on Amazon. Wilder got to the bottom of how the book ended up in Jenner’s hands relatively easily by finding Ashleah Gonzales tagged in Jenner’s IG post. Gonzales, who is also a published poet, is now widely acknowledged to be Jenner’s book concierge, tasked with supplying the model and reality star with ’grammable literature, often annotated throughout with turquoise Post-it notes.

Link to the rest at The Cut

Books Bring Us Together

From Writer Unboxed:

My book group just had our Christmas dinner. It was such a good night we hardly discussed this month’s book (Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin). While we were all chatting, a man put his hand on my shoulder, leaned into me and said, ‘I don’t know what you’ve done or how you did it, but,’ he looked up at my book club colleagues, ‘Well done, buddy.’ And he finished with a hearty pat on my back.

Why did he say this?

He seemed to be impressed that I was the only man among 16 women.

I was too slow to react, trying to work out how I knew this guy. But I didn’t. He was a stranger.

One of our group was much quicker. She called out, ‘Read more books, mate!’

I joined the group about 18 months ago, when I first moved to this city. It seemed like a good way to meet people through a shared interest in books. I didn’t know they’d be all women, although I could’ve guessed. In any book club I’ve been , wherever, in the world, I’m usually the only guy.

But I wasn’t there to meet women. I was there to meet people. And maybe even make friends.

Developing trust

It can be easy to meet people (for some of us) when you move to a new place. And some of those people might even be friendly people. But it’s more difficult to make friends.

You might spend time with those first people you meet – go for dinner, have a coffee or visit some of the local sights – but to become friends with them, really friends, takes something extra.

It’s difficult to pin down what makes truly great friends. You’re likely to have shared interests, values and experiences, for example.

A love of books is a good place to start, I thought. But if you only meet once a month and not everyone has much time to hang around after the discussion, it can take a while to really get to know the people and become anything like good buddies.

Then I met someone who wanted to start a group to discuss Stoic philosophy. I knew more or less what stoicism was about after a friend – a true friend – had introduced me to Marcus Aurelius some years ago, so I joined this group too.

This also involves books, and we have readings each time on a particular topic. In our last meeting, we happened to discuss friendship. The Stoic philosopher Seneca said this about it:

Ponder for a long time whether you shall admit a given person to your friendship; but when you have decided to admit him, welcome him with all your heart and soul. Speak as boldly with him as with yourself…’

Clearly Seneca should join a book club to have the chance to make some female friends, and he seems pretty intense too. I don’t think every friend has to be on the heart and soul level. I have a friend with whom I could leave a bag of money in small notes and know he would never touch a single one, but I can’t believe everything he tells me. But then I love fiction. I have another very good friend who will arrange to meet me tomorrow for lunch only to send an apology some time after dinner that evening. But there is no one I would trust more to look after my dog. And that’s a huge amount of trust.

Building bridges

I think Seneca is right, though, when he says you should ponder for while to see whether someone is really going to be a friend. We only need to look at literature to see how some friendships can go wrong. Donna Tartt’s The Secret History comes to mind.

But through the stoicism group, I met someone who organizes a spoken word evening. People perform their own work in a very cool café every other month. I joined the next time – as a spectator. Afterwards, I got talking to the organizer and we decided to expand the idea and start a writers group.

This is much more my thing – give feedback, do some writing exercises and generally support writers.

Our first meeting was fantastic. After so many years of working as an editor, I saw I really had something to offer the group. People were inspired, enthusiastic and motivated to write more, to take their ideas further and make their stories even better.

As an icebreaker, we wrote a 50-word biography that contained one lie.

Link to the rest at Writer Unboxed

Should Writers Attend a Book Group that’s Discussing their Own Book?

From Women Writers, Women[s] Books:

On a warm September night, in an English town, a writer steps into a room. Though she has been in this pleasant room before, the writer’s breath comes fast. Faces twist towards her, hard to read. What will happen in the next two hours is out of her control.

That writer, you may guess, is me. Twice in recent weeks, I’ve had the privilege of listening as a book group discusses The Truth Has Arms and Legs, my debut collection of short stories, published by Fly On The Wall Press. In that time, I’ve been delighted, moved – and pummelled. Book groups, I’ve discovered, are not cosy places; or not, at least, for authors. Any writer seeking ego-boosting flattery has come to the wrong place.

Don’t get me wrong: having belonged to one myself for over twenty years, I hold book groups in the highest possible esteem. Where else can women (let’s be honest – it’s mainly women) meet to drink wine (let’s be honest – there should be wine) and swap frank views on literature, life and all things in between?

In the days before my first book group appearance, I felt some trepidation. What if its members did not care for my short stories? To stumble on a one-star review in print can be painful. How much worse, to hear one delivered face-to-face.

Still, I reassured myself, reviews for my collection so far had been favourable. The chance to hear what readers thought, at first hand, was too good to pass up. A friend within the group had been generous to invite me. Surely nothing would go wrong.

At first, nothing did. The responses to my stories were pertinent and thoughtful. And then, as I relaxed, the mood began to change. “Oh – that story – no, no, no,” someone said, shaking her head. “And why did you make that other one so sad?” asked someone else (of a story I’d intended to be funny). A third rebuked me for a detail that (when I checked later) was not written on the page at all.

Before long I was reeling, punch-drunk like a boxer in a ring. Damp-palmed, I parried what seemed like raining blows. But no sooner had I dragged myself upright than another fierce left hook would send me spinning to the ropes.

Self-doubt – which every writer carries deep within their soul – began to surface. What monster of a book had I written? What monster of a person must I be myself?

And then, the way sunshine is restored by the passing of a cloud, positivity returned. Yes, the group agreed, they had very much enjoyed my book. Yes, they would love to read whatever I wrote next. I smiled, a little wanly, and thanked them for inviting me along.

Of course, I should have been prepared. As writers, we know that the words we supply are only half the story. What readers add as they read – their own preoccupations, experiences and desires – completes the process that we have just begun.

Knowing this, intellectually, is one thing. Seeing it play out before you is quite another. That is why, I suggest, authors invited to attend a book group should approach with care. Book groups exist, quite rightly, to serve the needs of readers. The needs of readers and writers do not totally align.

So it is that, on this warm September evening as I arrive at another book group, my mood is less carefree than before. Most likely, all will be well. Yet, like a child returning to the dentist, I cannot shake the knowledge that what happens next may hurt.

As before, the members of the group are talking merrily – but not about my book. They are speaking of their jobs, lives, children, the things old friends share when they regather. At first this does not bother me. I wait, and glug a glass of wine, and wait some more. Countless times, in my own book group, we have done the same. But, attending as the writer, this feels different. Even – as more minutes pass – perturbing. Perhaps the ladies assembled in the room have not liked my stories. Perhaps they would rather speak of other things all night, than say this sad fact to my face. Perhaps – even worse – they have not read the book.

At a point when I am certain my stories are of less interest than the dust upon their shoes, the host calls the group to order. A glow of attention settles on my book. Each person tells me what they think.

“The characters stay with you,” a woman says, beside me.

“It’s not like a novel, where you keep forgetting what you’ve read,” puts in another. “I kept thinking what would happen, after the story’s over.”

From Women Writers, Women[s] Books

April US publishing numbers tell a selective story

From The New Publishing Standard:

In April the pot pay-out to indie authors and small presses for ebooks downloaded via the Kindle Unlimited ebook subscription service operated by Amazon totalled $46.1 million. That would take the total ebook revenue in April towards $128 million, putting clear blue water between ebook and audio revenues.

The April StatShot from the Association of America Publishers tells a now everyday tale of decline in the US publishing market, with the usual selective statistics presented.

I defer to Porter Anderson’s coverage in Publishing Perspectives as a non-US perspective (“Because Publishing Perspectives is a news medium dedicated to covering the international book publishing industry, we report on news from the United States as information that’s important in world publishing. The States’ book market is the largest in the world. We do not, however, report on the American industry as “our” industry.”)

Publishing Perspectives reports on the AAP StatShot as follows.

  • Hardback revenues down 9.2% ($218.1 million)
  • Paperbacks down 16.3% ($208.9 million)
  • Mass market down 10.7% ($12.7 million)
  • Special bindings down 2.8% ($12.3 million)

In digital formats:

  • Ebook revenues down 14.1% ($71.9 million)
  • Digital audio up 5.8% ($65.0 million)
  • Physical audio down 14.5% ($1.0 million

Year-to-Date Numbers follow a similar pattern, with hardback down 4.2%, paperbacks down 1.8%, mass market down 16%, etc.

That compares to the March 2023 StatShot where ebook revenues were up 12.2%, just behind audio’s 14.1% rise.

But much of this is meaningless, whatever month we look at, as we all know the ebook numbers reflect only part of the real market.

As so often, we simply cannot see the full picture – something only Bookstat claims to be able to do – but there are windows that show a glimpse of what the AAP and reports like this from Publishing Perspectives are choosing to leave unremarked.

For instance, we know that in April the pot pay-out to indie authors and small presses for ebooks downloaded via the Kindle Unlimited ebook subscription service operated by Amazon totalled $46.1 million.

That would take the total ebook revenue in April towards $128 million, putting clear blue water between ebook and audio revenues, and pushing ebook revenue worrying close to the paperback and hardcover revenue numbers cited by the AAP.

And that’s before we even think about APub ebook downloads through Kindle Unlimited, which are not part of the pot pay-out, and before we think about a la carte sales by APub and indie authors on Amazon, and before we even begin to think about a la carte sales from the other ebook platforms that serve the US, like Nook, Apple, Kobo, Scribd and Google Play.

By contrast ebooks were down just 1%, digital audio up 17.7%.

Link to the rest at The New Publishing Standard