Sainsbury’s switches to Random House for book club

13.11.09 Graeme Neill in The Bookseller

Sainsbury’s has signed a deal with Random House for its titles to feature in a book club twice a month, just months after it relaunched its existing club with HarperCollins.

Sainsbury’s launched its book club with HarperCollins in January, and relaunched in June with more titles featured. Random House has partnered with Tesco since the supermarket chain launched its own book club in July 2007.

Sainsbury’s buyer Sharon Gurney said: “We loved Random House’s ideas and the types of titles they put forward. We had an amazing year with HarperCollins but we need to keep driving sales.”

The deal also includes a children’s book club: details have yet to be finalised although it is likely three books will be promoted each month with a greater focus on picture books.
The Sainsbury’s book club is aimed at promoting débuts and brand name authors. The adult book club choices will be priced £3.99 and feature in a “two for £7” campaign. A maximum of three book club titles will be promoted at one time. As a new title comes into the offer every two weeks, the longest running title in the campaign will drop out.

The books will be featured in standalone units in more than 400 supermarkets. These units will sit in the book aisle or at the front of stores.

The Tesco club helped sell more than 250,000 selected titles in its first year but its long-term future looks unclear. It will continue in its current format until the contract runs out next year, but Tesco and Random House declined to comment on whether the deal would be extended.

A Random House source said it was the opportunity to sell books outside of the book aisle that attracted the publisher to Sainsbury’s book club. He said: “We are hoping for more casual buyers to buy books. We want to catch the eye of customers that don’t necessarily shop in the book section.”

He said that Random House was looking at providing Sainsbury’s customers with exclusive content in the selected paperbacks. The book club is also expected to have material available on Sainsbury’s website.
He added that Sainsbury’s book club could co-exist with Tesco’s during the period both clubs overlap. He said: “As we treat Borders differently to Waterstone’s, similarly there’s a different demographic between Tesco and Sainsbury’s. This will not cannibalise sales.”