O Yes, O No.

While Oprah has not yet responded to WOM's letter, (when contacted by the press, her spokesperson said they had not yet read the letter but at the present time they had no plans in motion to resurrect the club) the blogsphere has been responding, some positively some not venturing a yeah or nay and others negatively.

Over at the Happy Booker, Wendi Kaufman, who is a member of WOM, notes that Oprah has just posted a recommendation of Edward P. Jones' 2003 novel The Known World to those who "need a book right away for your reading groups."

The Happy Booker asks if this "could this be a sign that Oprah's summer reading selection will come from the contemporary fiction shelf?"

Meanwhile, over at Jennifer Weiner's Snarkspot the author criticizes the letter suggesting that the signatory authors would be better served "writing more accessible books."

"Worse," she goes on to say later in her blog, "the W.O.M. authors imagine readers as a group of gullible, tractable, desperate pinheads, wandering like little children in the big, bad aisles of their local bookshop without Oprah to guide them."

I don't think the letter suggests that at all. Or that Oprah is the only thing the industry needs.

I often agree with Jennifer's down to earth take at Snarkspot, but not this time. I don't write literary fiction either, but I think that the issue that the letter brings up goes way beyond literary vs. chicklit vs. mystery/suspense. It's about people reading and writers writing.

With 1000 to 1200 novels published each and every month and with review space down 50% across the board, and with the average book getting little or no coop, it's not idle speculation that the average reader is greeted by a sea of titles most of which she has never heard of before. The result is that some readers report they are overwhelmed and shop for books and read less now than they used to and others say they take fewer chances on new authors.

So anything and everything that can be done to help readers navigate those aisles should be done. Sure the Oprah book club is only one thing. But it was one damn good thing. And not just for the writers. Screw the writers.

Oprah was great for the readers. She made contemporary books a conversation. Not books written eighty years ago or a hundred years ago. But books written last year by someone who the viewer could relate to.

Every month 8 million people watched one hour of television devoted to a living writer. One million of them went to the bookstore, and hundreds of thousands more went to the library all to get that book because they were excited about it.

Think of the millions of kids who heard their mom or dad talking about that book at dinner, or in the car on the way to the store. Think of the millions of kids who saw their mom or dad reading and the importance of that.

Like it or not, there are a lot of people who read Oprah's books who don't read as much any more. Like it or not people are confused by the mass of titles and authors names they don't recognize when they go to the store.

One of the reasons the Da Vinci Code has sold 11 million copies is because everyone has heard of it. Sure its fun, sure it moves, sure it's about something controversial, but more than any of that, everyone keeps hearing about it.

Since Oprah ended the club, the only book that has gotten an hour or more of prime TV is The Da Vinci Code. (And it's had three hours of prime time)

There is a correlation between TV exposure time and copies sold. There is a correlation between books being part of the conversation when they get a lot of media time and when they don't.

I don't think the letter was saying anything more complicated than the club had an impact that is missing in our culture and that's a good thing to point out and that's why I, for one, was proud to sign it.

Comments

[Katrina Stonoff]

Good point.

I both write and read literary fiction. I don't believe I have ever sat through an entire episode of Oprah, and I don't read the magazine. She has little bearing on my life.

But I bought Oprah's Book Club books a couple of times, DESPITE the sticker, because I had heard they were good. And you know what? I liked them. In fact, I liked nearly all the OBC books I bought, so eventually I started buying anything that had the sticker. I still read other lit fiction (including the controversial Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections, which I loved). But Oprah joined my sister and a very short list of people whose recommendations I also purchase.

I couldn't give a hoot about her show. I hated the power she had to decide which lit fiction authors were successful and which failed. But I miss reading books she's recommended.

I agree with you. She isn't the only answer, but she's a darn good start.

[Katharine Weber]

I don't see how Oprah had any power over which authors "failed." She has never been negative about a book. She is not a critic. She simply waved her magic wand over the chosen few which made them sell in numbers as never before to new readers.

[LadyLitBlitzin]

I'm not exactly an Oprah fan either but you can't deny she has a hell of a lot of influence over those people who do watch her show, and when it came to people reading, that was a good thing.

I'm frankly surprised at the level of snark from Jennifer Weiner over this, unless she just wanted to play devils advocate. It sounds like she's in some level of denial about the fact that many, many people don't read and many more who do, don't read literature (and I'm choosing NOT to get started on how I feel about The Da Vinci Code).

[Keith Chaffee]

Oprah's acolytes bought Oprah's books because Oprah Told Them To, and that's the extent of the impact Oprah's Book Club had on fiction sales. One or two Oprah authors have since had slightly higher sales than they'd had pre-Oprah -- Bohjalian comes to mind -- but none of them have ever (nor will ever) sell the way their Oprah book did.

Is there any evidence to suggest that Oprah's readers bought any other books on their trip to the bookstore? The Oprah readers I know simply walked in, grabbed Oprah's book from the big pile on the front table, and never ventured any further into the store.

Sure, the Oprah Book Club was a net plus for fiction sales -- 8 or 9 books each year got a million or so sales they wouldn't otherwise have gotten -- but the benefit was limited to a few lucky authors, and almost entirely to the specific books selected.

The problems with selling fiction go a hell of a lot deeper than even the benevolent St. Oprah can solve, and I thought the "O, Save Us, Oprah" letter was rather sad.

[Jozef Imrich]

"And all over the world, the old literature, the popular literature, is the same. It consists of very dignified sorrow and very undignified fun. Its sad tales are of broken hearts; its happy tales are of broken heads."
- Charles Dickens

Oprah makes sad and happy tales appealing!

PS:
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2005/4/24/education/10753683&sec=education

[ Making literature appealing ]

[Debby G.]

Some of Oprah's picks were quite good, but how many female-victim-finally-sees-the-light books can one really read?

And Oprah justified ending her book club by claiming she couldn't find one good book a month. What a disservice to writers. I could point her to ten good books a month.

When Jonathan Franzen insulted her, she halted the book club and turned to dead writers who couldn't talk back. I'm not a huge Oprah fan.

[krystal t.]

Personally, i don't watch enough Oprah for her to have had a serious impact on the books I choose to read. I think it's preposterous to imagine that Oprah is the antitdote for all literary woes. If a book is good,there are millions of people who can spread word of mouth. And if it's bad, the same applies.