Through the magic of the Internet, conference calls, and Skype, book clubs have found a whole new level of interaction with writers.
According to Book Beast, the trend has created some book club superstars: Joshua Henkin has spoken with 175 clubs about “Matrimony,” Adriana Trigiani has spoken with two or three clubs a week for years, and Laura Dave has already spoken with 100 groups for “The Divorce Party.” However, author M.J. Rose has some words of caution for book club bound writers.
Here’s more revealing intelligence from the article: “The first draft of Robert Alexander’s ‘The Kitchen Boy,’ the first novel of his Romanov trilogy, was initially rejected for publication 15 times, at which point Alexander hired an outside editor. She told him to shoot for a book-club ‘gem’ to cut the manuscript from 460 pages to 250 and hone in on the historical fiction. Alexander did and got three offers in eight days. His Viking and Penguin contracts, he says, even state that his books should be around 250 pages.”