Winfrey Provokes Range of Reaction and Speculation

The book industry took collective pause last week after Oprah Winfrey announced the end of her monthly book club. The industry found itself unsettled by, but also sanguine about, the prospect that Oprah would no longer tap at least half a dozen books every year for bestsellerdom. And it seemed at once hopeful and worried about a clubless future.

Most publishers tried to paint a happy face on the decision. "She definitely brought in new readers, and we hope to benefit from that in the years to come," said Simon & Schuster CEO Jack Romanos. Others stressed that Winfrey had set a standard that others would surely follow. (Indeed, four days after the announcement, The Today Show declared it would start a book club, though it did not commit to assigning reading in advance, a practice to which many ascribe Oprah's success.)

But for all the optimism, many wondered privately how they would cope with the disappearance of a windfall of this size. For the largest houses—particularly Random House, but also Penguin, Simon & Schuster, Warner and HarperCollins—the club had resulted in tens of millions of dollars in sales over its run.

Also whispered was the possibility that the club's influence—both economic and cultural—had run its course. Insiders pointed out that, by Oprah standards, the sales were no longer as muscular. While in the club's heyday, publishers sold an average of 1.5 million copies of an Oprah title into bookstores, they sold less than half that last year.

Some observed that while Oprah tapped lesser-known authors, they were almost always published by well-known houses. And as Marilyn Sheerbaum, co-owner of Bickerton & Ripley Books on Martha's Vineyard, observed, "[Winfrey] did so much for women writers, but another book on incest or abuse? No thanks."

Oprah did draw more personal, though still diplomatic, criticism for her comment explaining her decision. She had said she has found it "harder and harder" to discover a book she wants to share, and many read that to mean fewer quality books were being published. The fiction waters, said BOMC editor-in-chief Larry Shapiro, "haven't been overfished," as he echoed the protests of many.

In the end, though, what seemed to matter—more than the deconstructions and perhaps even more than the lost sales—was that the industry had lost one of its rituals, something that has come to feel as natural and familiar as BEA or the fall season. "I can't believe it," one executive responded, and for all the analysis and conversation, perhaps nothing said it better.