The latest twist in the newspaper book club explosion is the San Francisco Chronicle's new Chronicle Book Club, launched in conjunction with the company's cable arm, BayTV, and its Web site, SFGate.com. Roddy Doyle's A Star Called Henry (Viking) was the premiere title for the club, and the effect was immediate: sales of Doyle's controversial novel skyrocketed in the Bay Area after its selection.

The Chronicle's proximity to the nearby Contra Costa Time's book club and the Sacramento Bee's club (only 60 miles away) d sn't worry Chronicle book editor David Kipen. He told PW that the combined circulation of the three giant newspapers proves there are enough readers to sustain each of the clubs. "But if it came down to one or another coming out on top, of course, we want to succeed," said Kipen.

Forming alliances with booksellers, newspaper book clubs are emerging all over the country, increasing the sale of individual titles and bringing in a new readership for the newspapers. Last March, the Oregonian in downtown Portland launched the Oregonian Book Club (Bookselling, Mar. 15). Both the Sacramento Bee and the Contra Costa Times started their programs in the spring of 1997.

As with the other clubs, the Chronicle is courting local bookstores (nearly 40 have joined), featuring articles on the chosen title and offering a Web site on SFGate.com for monthly online chats and as a bulletin board for readers.

By hooking up with BayTV, however, the Chronicle Book Club has extended the club's outreach, raising its profile and accessibility for readers. The players didn't come together automatically. BayTV premiered a new program called Bookmark, hosted by Barbara Lane, in April 1998. According to Lane, the show began its own monthly book club almost a year ago by hosting a talk show with a cast of 8-10 literary panelists for each program. The panelists range in age from 20-somethings to septuagenarians and represent the Bay Area's diverse population. The popular program also features interviews with authors, monthly discussions between the panelists and a live phone call-in segment for readers who participate in the club.

"When the Chronicle newspaper decided to do a book club, naturally, the parent organization had them contact us," said Lane. "We already had the set up and knew the technicalities for doing the airings." Coincidentally, Lane had already interviewed Doyle for Bookmark when he was in town, before his book was chosen as the newspaper club's first title.

As if bringing TV into the equation wasn't enough, Kipen, Lane and the other regular book club panelists held a live show on October 16 during the San Francisco Book Fair. For the on-air version, Lane spliced pieces of Doyle's interview into the show. At show's end, it was revealed that Chang-rae Lee's A Gestured Life (Riverhead Books) was the next book club selection.

Good News for Bookstores

The Chronicle, which has a circulation of 500,000, lists participating booksellers every couple weeks. After Hut Landon, president of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association, recommended in the NCIBA newsletter that booksellers contact the newspaper, more than 20 stores did so, and word of mouth is still spreading.

Booksellers are extremely enthusiastic about the club. "It's a fantastic program," said Andrew Ross, owner of Cody's in Berkley, Calif., who just signed on. Other stores that have joined are Booksmith, A Clean Well Lighted Place, Green Apple, Solar Light, Modern Times, M 's, Printers Ink and Landon Books. City Lights plans to join as soon as its seismic retrofit is completed, according to buyer Paul Yamazaki. Chains are included, too. Borders, Barnes & Noble and a dozen Crown Books have joined. "As long as they offer the 20% discount on the book, they're in," Kipen explained.

For his part, Thomas Gladysz of San Francisco's Booksmith told PW, "It has had a tremendous impact." The store sold more than 50 copies of A Star Named Henry in the first two weeks after it was named by the club. "Normally, we would have sold five or 10 copies," he estimated. Booksellers are also happy because the Chronicle mentions them in Sunday features, in follow-up listings and on the online bulletin board postings, all of which act as effective and inexpensive promotions for booksellers.

Further Fine-tuning

Like other newspapers with book clubs, the Chronicle is aiming to fine-tune selections. "A book club tends to fall into a pattern," Kipen noted. "I'd like ours to be completely unique, not limited to any genre or form. We want to be unpredictable. The motto of the Chronicle is 'The voice of the west,' and on Sunday, we try to make the book review section the literary equivalent of that."

Among other things, the San Francisco Chronicle Book Review will publish the most intriguing of the reader comments near the end of the month, along with a review of the book if one hasn't already run. Kipen and Lane also hosted a chatroom on SFGate.com last month.

In the future, Kipen, deputy book editor Oscar Villalon and Lane may nominate three books and give readers a chance to vote on the monthly club's title selection. The newspaper will run a box in Kipen's Thursday column and invite votes."We'll definitely feature local and regional writers in the future as well," Kipen said, "but we don't have to do our writers any favors. There are too many good ones to need any special pleadings."

Other people in the book and newspaper industries are following the newspaper book club idea with interest. The Sacramento Bee, Oregonian and Contra Costa Times receive calls from newspaper editors all around the country -- editors with an eye for literature and business -- looking for models to form their own local book clubs.

Publishers are intrigued. Lynn Carey at the Contra Costa Times told PW that HarperCollins credited book clubs for helping to create bestsellers such as Rebecca Wells's Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. "Readers are signing up in swarms," Carey added.

Kipen confided that reading the PW piece last March and visiting PW's "How to Form a Book Club Web Site" (www.publishersweekly.com/articles/19990816_79858.asp) influenced his thinking about forming a book group. "We're bringing in new elements and growing the idea in our own way, as we tend do in the West," he said.