Thinking Outside the Book -- Regulator Bookshop Gives Book Lovers an Alternative Read

A recently launched bookstore-based book club has fashioned a notable coalition of bookstore, local writers, and an area arts newspaper. The result has built in-store traffic, spurred sales, and helped increase customer awareness.

Each month, the altReader book club, which was created by the Durham, North Carolina-based The Regulator Bookshop and is co-sponsored by a local alternative newspaper, The Independent Weekly, taps a different local author to pick his or her favorite book and to lead an evening discussion devoted to that book.

The book club idea was hatched this past summer, said Tom Campbell, co-owner of the Regulator. "I was kicking around some ideas, thinking, What can we do that's different? What are some new ideas to get people in here? What resources do we have?" Campbell told BTW. "We have an incredible array of authors in the area, and they come in here and do events ... and a lot of them shop here."

While Campbell learned a long time ago never to ask an author "how the new book was coming," he noted, "I have very interesting conversations with them about what they're reading. They have insights that, because they are writers, [are] different than mine."

Campbell believed that others would share his fascination with an author's literary point-of-view, and the seed for altReader was planted.

A database query showed that 90 published authors lived in the Durham area, explained Campbell. One writer, a Regulator regular, was Clyde Edgerton, author of Raney (Ballantine) and Walking Across Egypt (Ballantine). "I talked to Clyde [about the idea]," Campbell said. "I knew he'd do a good job." Edgerton chose the first altReader pick -- Fred Chappell's novel, I Am One of You Forever (Louisiana State University Press).

Once an author was tapped to do the book club, Campbell contacted The Independent Weekly to see if they might co-sponsor the club. Campbell thought the Weekly would be a good fit because it publishes a popular book section each month. Additionally, a partnership meant the book club would be advertised in the paper for free (the Weekly runs half-page ads for the club once a week). Coincidentally, "they were excited about the idea because they were trying to come up with a book club idea that was new," Campbell noted.

The altReader book club meets the second Friday of each month, and the book club selection for the upcoming month is announced in the Independent Weekly the second Wednesday of the month. The book choice is completely up to the chosen author; it does not have to be written by a local author nor have local subject matter. Campbell explained, "The only thing we say to authors is pick a book you like, preferably in paperback."

The first book club meeting was held September 13, with Edgerton hosting. The event was an unmitigated success, said Campbell. Over 150 people attended the event, and the store sold 115 copies of Chappell's book. "Clyde played banjo and sang, and then got the author on the phone," he said. "We had some refreshments and some beer and wine for folks so they would stay and socialize after the book club."

The event's popularity gave Campbell another idea. Soon after the first book club event, he called his rep at HarperCollins, the publisher of the second altReader book club pick, Little, Big, by John Crowley. "I asked if we could get co-op with this," he said, and he noted that the publisher was amenable to the idea. "And [with the co-op], we took out yet another ad."

Haven Kimmel, author of The Solace of Leaving Early (Doubleday), a number-one Book Sense 76 pick, picked Little, Big last month, and she led the book club discussion on October 11. Campbell said the book club garnered another impressive turnout. "We had about 75 people," he said. "And we sold 95 copies [of Little, Big]." The current altReader pick, which was chosen by Matt O'Keefe, author of You Think You Hear (St. Martin's Press), and Leah Stewart, author of Body of a Girl (Penguin USA), is Eva Moves the Furniture (Picador USA), by Margot Livesey, which was a September/October 2001 Book Sense 76 pick. O'Keefe and Stewart will lead the book club discussion on November 8.

Although altReader depends upon Durham-area authors, Campbell stressed that a bookstore doesn't have to have local authors living next-door to create their own altReader. "For other bookstores, something like this could be done with people in the community: the local librarian, or [people from] public schools and colleges," he explained. "It's the local connection here [that's important]."

Thus far, Campbell is very pleased with the success of altReader. "The kind of buzz we get from this is kind of surprising," he said. "Even people who have not attended the book club have talked to me about it. It's put the bookstore in people's mind in a positive way." He added that, after the recent openings in Durham of a Borders and Barnes & Noble, altReader has "brought customers back to us," he said. "[The chains] don't do anything like this."

For more information on altReader, or to read what Kimmel and Edgerton had to say about their book club picks, click here. --David Grogan