BOOK COVER MAGAZINE - WINTER EDITION - 2017

BOOK CLUBS, AUTHORS & LITERARY EVENTS
By Sharon Lucas
When I founded my first book club in 1998, the premier places for readers to meet and get to know
African American authors in the DC/MD area were the now defunct brick and mortar bookstores,
Karibou and Borders. These stores didn’t just stock the books we were looking for; they brought the
authors to us. Unfortunately, by 2008, Karibou had closed and Borders was failing. Since then, other
significant changes in the literary world – such as the closing of most of our African
American bookstores, the dramatic advances in e-book readers, the growth of online retailers such
as Amazon, and the affordability of print-on-demand (POD) for self-published authors, which has
given us more authors and reads than ever before – have created a need for readers and authors to
develop new methods to meet and network. Many book clubs have risen to meet this challenge by
inviting authors to their book club meetings and hosting literary events.
Authors looking for the best way to “get in” with book clubs should consider building the kind of
relationships that will encourage readers to become supporters of both them and their work. The
average book club meets no more than ten times a year, so the number of authors who can be
invited each year is limited. If given the choice between inviting an author with whom they’ve had no
previous contact versus an author they have met – either in person or on social media – and
developed both a dialogue and a rapport with – the latter will most likely receive the invitation.
Award winning Author, Book Club Consultant and Literary Event Planner
BOOK COVER MAGAZINE | JANUARY 2017 18