More people will be searching for their reading glasses as the book club becomes hip again.
A few years back, it seemed that the whole nation was donning a pair of reading glasses and joining a book club. The phenomena first took off in the States thanks to the all-encompassing influence of Oprah Winfrey. Then in the UK, Richard and Judy spread the word and book clubs spawned in every nook and cranny. It became cool to be seen with a pair of reading glasses propped on your head – whether it was in a neighbour’s living room, down the pub or in the local library.
Celebrities Don Their Reading Glasses
But like all fads and trends, book clubs lost their allure for a while. That is until a new TV series came along with More4′s TV Book Club. With a bespectacled panel of celebrities looking hip in their reading glasses, it seems the influence of book clubs is back. How books sell is something that preoccupies the marketing bods in London’s powerful publishing houses. One of the biggest forces in sales is word of mouth. And reading groups and book clubs are all about word of mouth – they can literally help create best sellers.
Book Clubs and the Oprah Effect
Getting a novel on a must-read list for book clubs is a sure fire way for an author’s sales to take off, especially if it’s a televised book club, generating up to half a million viewers. When Richard and Judy perched their reading glasses on their heads, they literally launched a writer’s career. Using celebrities on the TV book club is crucial – celebrity endorsements of novels are much sought after by the publishing industry. If a book appeared on Oprah, it was guaranteed sales of a million or more – something that became dubbed ‘the Oprah effect’.
Reading is in Our DNA
From small local reading groups to high profile media endorsements, if the person wearing the reading glasses is famous, word will spread. The TV book club features popular figures like Gok Wan, David Spikey and Jo Brand and the woman behind the show Amanda Ross, who also founded the Richard and Judy Book Club, is now considered to be the most powerful woman in publishing.
The fact that the book club phenomenon keeps reinventing itself shows that despite the advances in technology and love of computer games and TV, books remain a consistently powerful cultural influence. From the technology of Ebooks to the simple pleasure of physical books, reading and storytelling is still embedded in our DNA.
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