The Bookseller.com

10th January 2009

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Asda launches Hachette book club

20.12.07 Graeme Neill

Asda is launching a mass market book club exclusively with Hachette Livre UK next year.
The supermarket, which will focus on commercial titles from across Hachette's publishers, will select one paperback a month and promote it at a discount along with the author's Hachette backlist. The paperbacks will be exclusive Asda editions featuring author notes, extra chapters and discussion group suggestions.

Asda book buyer Steph Bateson described the author mix as "a selection of brand authors and up-and-coming names". Karen Rose's Count to Ten (Headline) will launch the book club on 10th January, with future authors to include Robyn Young (Hodder), Erica James (Orion) and Penny Vincenzi (Headline).

"We are doing this as an opportunity to build on the credibility we have gained in books over the past few years," said Bateson. "We feel we have the authority now to guide our customers towards the right kind of books. You see with the success of "Richard & Judy" that people do buy recommended reads. What we are doing makes it simpler for our customers when they are browsing. It's not a typical bookshop environment, so anything we can do to help push good books is a good thing."

The books will be promoted across Asda's 347 UK stores with special point-of-sale material and "Asda Book Club" price branding. In the supermarket's 38 Living and Supercentre stores, there will be a special one metre-wide drop fixture highlighting the selected books along with the author's promoted backlist.

The supermarket will also promote the books online via a Book Club microsite, which will sit alongside Asda's new book retailing website. The retail site, which launched last week, offers up to 300,000 titles across a wide range of genres, with free delivery for orders of more than £20. It is currently promoting Jeremy Clarkson's And Another Thing . . ., Clive Cussler's Treasure of Khan and Glenice Crossland's Christmas Past as its books of the week, all for £3.43. Christmas hits from Russell Brand, Sharon Osbourne and Richard Hammond are on sale at £9.

The Book Club is in partnership with Galaxy and Asda will be working exclusively with Hachette Livre until at least 2009. Bateson said the initiative would initially focus on fiction, but did not rule out the possibility of other genres being introduced at a later date.

In May this year, Tesco became the first supermarket to launch a book club, in partnership with Random House. Each month, a selected title is promoted featuring exclusive content and a specially branded bookmark. Tesco's current book club title is The Shoe Queen by Anna Davis.

Hachette Graeme Neill Book Club Asda