Are niche book clubs the way to go?

NME reported yesterday that Marcus Mumford of indie-folk rock band Mumford and Sons has set up his own book club. The first book they will be reading is ‘All the Pretty Horses’ by Cormac McCarthy.

Marcus is following in the footsteps of not only Richard and Judy and Oprah, but more recent attempts like the Wossy Bookclub (Jonathan Ross) and Gwyneth Paltrow.

These experiments were initially watched carefully by the book industry as it tried to work out what, if anything, would fill the void left by the R&J Book club demise.

For the cynical among us, it would be possible to meet Marcus’ move, especially the way that NME chose to describe it (a ‘Richard and Judy’ style book club) with derision. Mumford and sons are a relatively new outfit, having only released their debut album this month, and it’s unlikely that Marcus’ stamp of approval will have the clout of an R&J sticker. But it’s important not to underestimate the impact of a nucleus of strong grass roots support.

Perhaps this is the future of bookclubs? Perhaps the answer is not another ’saviour of the book industry’ household name book club that broadcasts daily to 3 million people, but small niche bookclubs led by figures with core groups of dedicated supporters. This is not too dissimilar to the way that Mumford and Sons themselves broke out and joined the mainstream: good placement on key, niche shows and websites, dedicated touring, word of mouth support – culminating in coverage of Radio 1 and 2 and a number 11 record on the UK album chart.

These sort of book clubs could be especially useful to break out smaller literary novels that, lacking commerciality or accessibility, would have not worked in the R & J forum anyway.  Sometimes, for these books, a well-placed word of mouth advocate is all it takes to start selling.