Return of the Gay Book Club!

Rumors of the demise of Insightout, the gay and lesbian “book of the month” club, were apparently greatly exaggerated. According to those operating the club, reports last year that the club had closed were wrong.

“Why do people think we closed?” said Michael Connor, editor of Insightout Books. “We’re not closed. But clearly we have a P.R. problem.”

Earlier this year, Time Warner sold Bookspan, which owned Insightout, to a subsidiary of the German media conglomerate Bertelsmann, which already had part ownership. Shortly thereafter, Bertelsmann embarked on a major overhaul, significantly reducing its overall workforce. In May, Publishers Weekly reported, and AfterElton.com and many other media outlets repeated, that a spokesman for Bertelsmann had confirmed that Insightout Book Club was being shuttered.

Not so, said Melinda Meals, Senior Director of Communications for Bertelsmann Direct North America. “We did consider closing Insightout Books,” Meals said. “But upon further analysis the decision was made to keep the Club operating. It was never closed.”

Along with Insightout, Bertelsmann currently runs 19 other book clubs, including the original Book of the Month Club, the Mystery Guild, and the Science Fiction Book Club, one of its largest special interest book clubs, with 185,000 members. Insightout is among the smallest of the clubs, with 60,000 members, though that is an all-time high, similar to Rhapsody, Bertelsmann’s romance book club.

The club currently offers members an initial four books for one dollar, in exchange for an agreement to buy three more books at regular prices over the next two years. Prices are typically about 40% off publisher cover prices, Meals said.

The club sends out 18 regular catalogs a year and one holiday edition, Connor said. A selection is automatically shipped and charged to the member’s account unless he or she responds via mail within a certain time period.

According to Connor, he and an advisory board of six to eight writers and other publishing professionals pick books for the club by reading advance copies, then select ten to 14 new titles, both fiction and non-fiction, for each new catalog.

”We try to have the best of what’s out there,” Connor said. “We try to keep current.”

The club, which negotiates directly with publishers and pays royalties to authors, typically prints its own hardcover editions of the books it carries. A bestseller will move three to five thousand copies — “More than what a lot of publishers sell,” Connor said.

Insightout editor, Michael Connor (l)
and author Lawrence Schimel (r)

Indeed, many authors believe the existence of the club is a great thing for gay books, providing marketing and extra sales that can make a big difference in the success of individual books.

“In terms of my own books, Insightout has been wonderful in getting the books out there, especially now that the network of nearly 200 gay and lesbian bookstores that existed when I began publishing in the early 90s no longer exists,” said Lawrence Schimel, author of His Tongue, Vacation in Ibiza, and Best Date Ever. “For many people, the club has become a sort of virtual or mail order gay and lesbian bookstore, helping them to find titles not otherwise available in their area or local stores. “

Schimel noted that Insightout has also sponsored cultural gay literary events and institutions, including the Lambda Literary Foundation and Award, the Publishing Triangle, the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival, and the Fire & Ink queer writers festival for GLBT writers of color.

“The club has always supported new writers,” Schimel said. “Not only did the club bring newer writers to the attention of an interested book-buying queer public, but they also had an annual award for writers whose first book is carried by the club. “

Still, some have complained that Insightout threatens the health of the remaining independent gay bookstores while not offering all the selections they do. “They create an illusion that they are giving you the marketplace,” Ed Hermance, owner of Philadelphia’s Giovanni’s Room bookstore told AfterElton.com in July 2007. “But they are only presenting a tiny percentage of the titles that are actually available. Bookstores like Giovanni's Room are dedicated to making all of this material available to the gay community.”

Ed Hermance, owner of Giovanni's Room bookstore

“I've found that sales through the book club are extra sales,” Schimel said. “That is, the sales of a book that is picked up by the club and a book that isn't picked up by the club have comparable sales through regular bookstore channels, but the book that is picked up has that few extra hundreds or thousands of copies sold through the club edition.”