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Posted By: Lightningshadow Feb 09, 2004 - 02:03 pm

I don’t know about anyone else but I feel that fantasy and sci-fi fans are getting a bad deal in terms of book clubs. I’ve looked for months and haven’t found a single one than has a decent fantasy or sci-fi section and I only found one club that was totally devoted to fantasy and sci-fi.
Why are we being ignored.
Does anyone agree with me?

Posted By: Aldan Feb 10, 2004 - 09:58 am

Yes, I sure do. Of course, any book club will tend to come out second-best compared to regular bookstores, when it comes to selection, because the bookclubs have to find books that the publishers are WILLING to sell to them at a discounted rate (below the standard wholesale price) and the publishers tend to do those with a "special version" of the book (the "book club edition".
One other problem that sci-fi/fantasy publishers have had up until recently (especially sci-fi pub's) is that they don't tend to sell in the volumes that other genres do (can you say romance novels, anyone?). This makes most of these publishers less willing to take such a risk, so the sheer numbers of books available for book clubs tends to be much smaller than other genres have.

Posted By: Hyperion Feb 10, 2004 - 07:45 pm

Yeah Aldan is right, a book club can't compete with a good bookshop say like Waterstones.

I either goto my local Car boot sale on a tuesdays or thursday and have a root around the book stalls for any good buys, usually end up coming away with 1 or 2 boooks costing no more than a £!.00 each most times, or I goto the local bookshop in my town centre, which is a Waterstones.
I do pre-order books as-well sometimes, just to make sure I get a copy, if it's something I have really been looking forward to, like one in a series I am reading or something

The Internet however is were I get my chit-chat book club type interaction, rather like here at Speculativevision.
This place is rather like an online book club, we have debates on books, writing styles, whats just come out, whats going to come out, blah, blah

Regards Hyperion

Posted By: Lightningshadow Feb 13, 2004 - 01:45 pm

I'm not going to argue with that either, but if one club can do it then why can't the others.

Posted By: Aldan Feb 16, 2004 - 09:48 am

It's all about the quantities available for book clubbing, as well as the fact that hardbound books tend to not sell well in sci-fi or fantasy. This means that most publishers of aforesaid novels in those two genres aren't willing to invest the money in CREATING the HC books, and so they only publish science fiction and/or fantasy books in paperback form - thus making the bookclub idea unusable. It sucks. I know. But it's the way life is. You may wish to hook up with Waldenbooks, Border's books or Barnes and Noble books to see if any of them have book clubs in those areas. I know that Waldenbooks USED to, but I don't know if they still have a book club.

Posted By: Aldan Feb 23, 2004 - 08:00 am

You know something, though? I just yesterday found a sci-fi/fantasy book club brochure that I'm a member of, and had totally forgotten about. Of course, I forgot that brochure today, so I'll bring it to work tomorrow and post the info about it for you (if it's still in existance...).

Posted By: Aldan Feb 28, 2004 - 01:16 pm

Here's a website for the book club. sfbc.com
Now, I know it may be blocked out, but I'm just trying to answer a question!

Posted By: Aldan Feb 28, 2004 - 01:17 pm

Oh, and by the way, said book club is both fantasy AND sci fi in nature.

Posted By: Lightningshadow Mar 08, 2004 - 10:46 pm

I'm not trying to be a pain in the butt. I do aknowledge that there are probably many sci-fi and fantasy book clubs in the US, but i was refering to UK book clubs, sorry i should have mentioned that at the outset, my brian just hasn't been in top gear lately