To help launch new fiction titles, more publishers are aggressively working to get booksellers to feature their works in book clubs for signed first editions. These clubs, which typically offer one hardcover novel a month, many by first-time authors, can generate sales of as many as 1,000 copies for a single title per store.

While established writers at mainstream houses, like Richard Russo, whose Bridge of Sighs appeared on several first edition book club lists this fall, may not need the extra attention, for debut novelists it can have a significant impact. This fall, for example, Unbridled Books got what its sales director Steven Wallace called a “grand slam,” when four clubs adopted Margaret Cezair-Thomson’s first novel, The Pirate’s Daughter. “The book has been on a lot of booksellers’ minds, but this helps move it to the next level,” said Wallace. The book was the #1 October Book Sense pick.

The clubs benefit not only publishers but bookstores as well, since modern signed first editions typically sell at full list price and often appreciate in value. With the recent movie release of Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men, members of Denver’s Tattered Cover club have seen the value of their first-edition copies increase ninefold, to more than $250. In addition, noted Charles Stillwagon, events manager at Tattered Cover, the clubs are a way to keep in touch with customers who have moved away from the area.

At Tattered Cover, Stillwagon is one of several voracious readers who help choose books for the club. Most stores rely on an informal selection committee, which generally includes the owner, the events coordinator and a buyer. Newtonville Books in Newtonville, Mass., is one of the few stores to offer two or three books every month and to give club members discounts, not on their selections but on other store purchases.

Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley, Mass., which has one of the largest such clubs—260 members—in the country, will select only books by authors in its reading series or who are within a two-hour drive of the store. “Last December, we didn’t choose a book,” said Darcy Lambert, who directs the club. “We notified customers that we couldn’t find anything we could stand behind, and sent out a catalogue of the first edition collectible books we have in the store.”

Some would rather bend the rules than pass on a selection. That’s the case at Book Passage in Corte Madera, Calif., which uses its club to spotlight emerging writers. “The members are mostly collectors, and we’ve gotten a lot of feedback saying we introduce them to writers they wouldn’t have known,” said club coordinator and buyer Mary Benham. Even so, the store made exceptions this year for two novels by well-known short story writers, Away by Amy Bloom and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz.

At Square Books in Oxford., Miss., Slade Lewis puts aside signed first editions in the fall when a lot of authors are touring and uses them months later, during slower tour months. If he can’t get a good signed first edition, Lewis will wait and send out two the following month. Unlike other stores, Square Books offers two levels of membership—one with 12 books a year, the other with 18. Those who have been in the club for six months receive a free bonus book at Christmastime and can refuse two selections during the year. It’s a tribute to the strength of its selections and the loyalty of its customers that membership has held steady at 200 members for many years.

Both Square Books and Lemuria Books in Jackson, Miss., heavily promote signed collectible books in their stores and on their Web sites. And the clubs are an integral part of who they are as booksellers. Bookseller Joe Hickman at Lemuria takes pride in creating a collectible first edition bookstore within a regular retail store. But even more significant, he said, “is knowing that one little guy in Mississippi can help out. You’re either helping out a first novel or a first book—and you’re helping an author. Authors definitely love it.”