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Book of the Month Club
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The Book of the Month Club (founded 1923) is a United States mail-order business where consumers are offered a new book each month.
The Book of the Month Club is part of a larger company that runs many book clubs in the United States and Canada. It was formerly the flagship club of Book-of-the-Month Club, Inc. That company merged with Doubleday Direct, Inc., a company owned by Bertelsmann, in 2000. The resulting company, Bookspan, was a joint-venture between Time Warner and Bertelsmann until 2007 when Bertelsmann took over complete ownership. Approximately six weeks after it acquired complete ownership of Bookspan, Bertelsmann initiated a major overhaul of the book club business, a process that will eliminate 280 positions, or about 15% of its workforce of 1,900. Many of the specialty book clubs such as American Compass are being eliminated.
The company operates a number of non-general book clubs including:
* American Compass, a club primarily aimed at American conservative readers.
* InsightOut, a book club featuring books of topical interest to gay and lesbian readers
* Mosaico and Circulo, two clubs offering Latin and Spanish-translated selections.
Contents
[hide]
* 1 Membership terms
* 2 Clubs operated by Bookspan and affiliates
* 3 See also
* 4 External links
[edit] Membership terms
The most common terms of membership involve a "negative response" system whereby a member is offered a monthly book selection which will be mailed to them on a particular date if it is not declined before that date is reached. Customers typically have the option to respond declining the selection or opting to order another book or books instead.
In addition, potential members are often offered a selection of books to select from at an arbitrarily low price (for example "4 books for $4.00 each") with the stipulation that once they have accepted this initial shipment, and decided they wish to join the club, they must then purchase a certain number of books within a certain period of time (for example, 2 books within the first year) to complete their obligation to the club.
The Zooba format requires a 3-book commitment and allows the customer to build and manage a book list similar to a mail-order DVD rental queue. The customer is charged $9.95 monthly (plus any applicable taxes) and is sent the first available book on his or her list. Additional books not on the monthly cycle are also $9.95, and the web interface makes maintaining gift addresses easy. The service usually has an impressive selection of current hardcover bestsellers and is freely browsable to non-members.
[edit] Clubs operated by Bookspan and affiliates
* American Compass
* Architects & Designers Book Service
* Behavioral Science Book Service
* Black Expressions
* Children's Book-of-the-Month Club
* Círculo de Lectores
* Club Mosaico
* Computer Books Direct
* Crafter's Choice
* Discovery Channel Book Club
* Doubleday Book Club
* Doubleday Large Print
* Early Childhood Teachers' Club
* Equestrian's Edge Book Club
* The Good Cook
* History Book Club
* Home Style Books
* InsightOut
* Kids' BookPlanet
* Library of Speech-Language Pathology
* The Literary Guild
* Military Book Club
* Mystery Guild
* Nurse's Book Society
* One Spirit
* Outdoorsman's Edge
* Primary Teachers' Book Club
* Quality Paperback Books
* The Reader's Subscription
* Rhapsody Book Club
* Scientific American Book Club
* Science Fiction Book Club
* Smart Reader Rewards (Book-of-the-Month Club)
* Stephen King Library
* Zooba
[edit] See also
* DVD club
[edit] External links
* Bookspan Book Club directory
* Book of the Month Club
* Zooba Book Club
* Doubleday Book Club
* Real Audio interview with David Allender about Children's Book of The Month Club by Don Swaim
* Science Fiction Book Club
* Crossings
* Quality Paperback Book Club
* The Good Cook
* One Spirit
* Scientific American Book Club
* Doubleday Large Print
* Literary Guild
* Rhapsody Book Club
* Children's Book of the Month Club
* BookPlanet
* Doubleday Book Club
* Black Expressions
* History Book Club
* Military Book Club
* HomeStyle Books
* Club Mosaico
* Circulo de Lectores
* Book of the Month (Smart Readers)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_the_Month_Club"
Categories: Direct marketing | Bertelsmann AG | Time Warner | Companies established in 1923 | Book publishing companies of the United States | Entertainment companies of the United States
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