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From: ecl@mtgzz.UUCP (e.c.leeper)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Science Fiction Book Club
Message-ID: <1059@mtgzz.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 26-Aug-85 02:58:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: mtgzz.1059
Posted: Mon Aug 26 02:58:07 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 23-Aug-85 07:00:41 EDT
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                 Comments on The Science Fiction Book Club
                       An article by Evelyn C. Leeper

     Recently, Ellen Asher of the Doubleday Science Fiction Book Club (SFBC)
came to speak at NJSFS (the New Jersey Science Fiction Society).  Some of
her comments were fairly interesting, so I will relay them as I remember
them.

     The SFBC is one of seven Doubleday book clubs (Asher said she likes to
think of it as one sucker on the book club tentacle of the Doubleday
octopus).  It is the largest of their specialty clubs (they also have a
military history club and the Mystery Guild, for example).  I don't recall
if it's larger than their Literary Guild, though.  The seven clubs have a
membership totaling over one million, and since the mailing list that the
SFBC sells (which includes expired members) is about 250,000, one can
conclude that the SFBC itself has about 200,000 members.  (The actual
figures are secret, apparently.)

     There was a lot of discussion about the books that are selected.  There
are several considerations.  The books are printed "letter-press" rather
than offset, so that books relying on strange typographies or complicated
interior illustrations have little chance of being chosen (alternate
selections can be printer offset in special cases, but the main selections
cannot be).  Most are issued as hardcovers, though they occasionally issue a
trade paperback.  (There is a new LeGuin--I've forgotten the title--that
will be a trade paperback, slip-cased with cassette.)  Because of the
"negative option" method used (see below), and because so many of the
members are minors, the main selections usually do not include "adult"
(sexual) material.  Doubleday has no desire to get hauled into court for
sending unsolicited sexual material to minors.

     Several of us (including me) decried the swing from science fiction to
fantasy that we see the SFBC taking.  There appear to be several reasons for
this.  One, fantasy sells (according to Asher, and she should know).  Two,
there is a lot more fantasy available than there used to be.  (Look in you
local Waldenbooks or B. Dalton if you don't believe this.)  Three, and this
is my observation based on an extended conversation, Asher likes fantasy
better than science fiction, and Arthurian/high fantasy better than dark
fantasy (including horror, but also works by such authors as Glen Cook and
Stephen Brust).  While she buys the obligatory science fiction (no one would
dream of not offering the latest Asimov or Niven), she tends to go for the
new fantasy authors more than the new science fiction authors.  This is, of
course, somewhat self-fulfilling.  As more fantasy is offered, people who
prefer fantasy join the SFBC because they can get more of what they want,
while people who prefer science fiction leave (or are dropped) because they
can't find what they want.  (If a member hasn't bought a book in a year,
they are sent a letter asking them to return an enclosed card if they wish
to remain a member.  This way the SFBC doesn't keep spending postage on
people who never buy anything.)

     Someone asked about how well the book club editions hold up over time.
Asher replied that they are printed on acid-free paper, so should last
reasonably well.  This provoked a stir of surprise, since Gregg Press and
Bluejay Books have been promoting their books as being superior to most
because of the acid-free paper.  Why doesn't the SFBC mention this in their
advertising?  Asher said that every time this was suggested, the powers that
be at Doubleday insisted that no one would understand what that meant, so it
didn't pay to advertise it.  If enough people wrote the SFBC and asked them
to switch to acid-free paper, they might realize that we *do* know what the
stuff is!

     There has been some discussion about the "negative option" method that
the SFBC uses (if you don't reply otherwise, you automatically get the main
selections).  People have claimed that there is some way to get on a
"positive option" list, where you don't have to reply each month.  When I
asked about this, the response was that there was such a list, but it is
reserved for people who have some good reason to be on it.  Most of the
people on the list, for example, are overseas, where the cost of postage and
handling is high enough that the SFBC felt that the default sending of the
selections wouldn't be fair (not to mention the problems of getting the
cards back to the SFBC back in time to have them not send the selections, if
negative option were in effect).  I suspect that people who travel a good
deal (the military, etc.) could also be put on the list.

     No one talked about the cost of postage and handling.  Evryone knows
it's high; everyone knows there's not much that can be done about it.

					Evelyn C. Leeper
					...ihnp4!mtgzz!ecl