When
Oprah had her book club, a few dozen selected books over the years saw
astronomical sales. That was great for a handful of authors. It didn’t help the
vast majority of writers.
The
Today Show, with its newly minted book club, is a step in the right direction
but falls short of what’s needed on TV. I’d love to see every talk show have a
book club. Or even better, let’s see them do daily book reviews the way they
review movies.
Whenever
books can be in the public debate and on its collective consciousness, we all
win.
Over
the past decade there has been significant erosion in newspaper book reviews.
Behold:
·
Fewer
newspapers are published daily.
·
The
newspaper has fewer pages dedicated to books.
·
Circulation
of print newspapers has dropped.
Granted,
online media is making up the difference, but it doesn’t have to be one vs. the
other. All media should showcase books -- online, print, television, and radio -- locally, regionally, and nationally.
In
the past decade, The Today Show lost more than a third of its audience,
partially to competing TV shows and partially due to people simply not tuning
into TV and instead busying themselves with a myriad of digital distracters and
destinations.
The
media is fragmented and fractured. It’ll take more than one TV show to get the
dialogue on books going strong, but Today represents a start in the right
direction. Will its competitors follow suit? We’ll see.
We
need a show dedicated to books -- or even a cable channel doing 24-7 books -- the
way entertainment, sports, weather, politics, business, and fashion have gotten
attention. Publishers and authors no longer just compete with each other, but
with everything else, from Miley Cyrus twerking videos to blog posts to tweets -- all of which are free and endlessly available. Books need to be promoted
and front of mind.
Maybe
the best place for a book club is the bookstore. Each day a store can host a
book blub gathering to discuss book recommendations or to share opinions of
what individuals had recently read. Maybe some stores already do this.
The
Today Show will no doubt help some authors, but it will take more than one book club to lift the industry to loftier heights.
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Brian
Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and
not that of his employer, the nation’s largest book promoter. You can follow
him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when
discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog ©
2013
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