"You can't say something like 'children's books don't work.' Instead you continue to keep your mind and options open to try lots of different things." Some characteristics remain constant: 95% of Crossing members are women. The average member stays two years, people may drop out and re-enroll, and only a tiny fraction-1,100 members-have stayed with the club since its beginning.įor that reason, "the challenge with the book club is to keep up with membership," says Doering. But while the number is constant, the people who make up that number aren't. Also doing well, and representing a shift from previous sales of lighter inspirational fare, are more serious Christian living titles, including When Godly People Do Ungodly Things: Arming Yourself in the Age of Seduction by Beth Moore (Broadman & Holman) and His Word in My Heart: Memorizing Scripture for a Closer Walk with God by Janet Pope (Moody).ĭoering notes that membership has held steady at around a million for the past five years after climbing to that height from Crossing's inception in 1992. "We're seeing some good numbers and some nice surprises, and things we hoped were going to do well are doing well." Given the current hotness of Christian novels, fiction, not surprisingly, continues to grow, and Doering reports that Cape Light by popular painter Thomas Kinkade and Katherine Spencer (Berkley) is one success on the fiction list, though she wouldn't disclose a sales total. "We're having a good year," says Andrea Doering, senior editor at Crossings, who has been with the club eight of its 10 years. While membership may not be growing, who's a member, what members read, and other materials members may buy can change, leaving the clubs the task of monitoring and responding to the shifts. Editors at these clubs say some things change, some don't. Relatively new to the Bookspan team is Traditions, a year-old club for "cultural Jews" that adds fiction and eclectic picks to staple books about observances, holidays and other conventional Jewish religious topics.
The major clubs-Crossings, an evangelical Christian club with around a million members, and the body/mind/spirit-focused One Spirit, with 350,000 members-have operated on the same team since Bookspan, a book club marketing program, was formed in 2000 through the joint partnership of clubs owned by AOL Time Warner (including One Spirit) and Bertelsmann (including Crossings). In the religion category, clubs report steady going, working to keep members satisfied. The book club share of the retail book market grew 3.3% in 2001. Mail still works, and catalogue mailers too are gaining a better understanding of the ways in which the Web can become a sales vehicle in tandem with mail. Similarly, those using direct mail to sell books are keeping on, testing as they go, seeking new lists, products, readers.
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