How many Americans participate in book clubs?

Question

I am looking to understand how many Americans participate in book clubs and what the trends have been in this area.

I am actually looking for an estimated number of Americans that are in book clubs. For example, is it 5 Million or 10 Million Americans that are in book clubs?

Answer 1

I'm thinking you mean book clubs (discussion groups), not book clubs (book-of-the-month type). I saw one guestimate online saying maybe 500,000 Americans belonged to book clubs. Oprah's publicizing her book club picks on her show has energized book clubs around the US, but many are local and not affiliated with any larger organization. That makes it very hard to quantify.
In the retirement community where I live, there is tremendous participation. 40% of the ladies on my street belong to a book club. They have the leisure time to read and participate, so I'm sure it is higher than it is in the population as a whole.

Answer 2

I have and do now. I started because of the obvious promotion of several books for just a buck or two, and low costs books in the future. It's much easier for me than driving all the miles to a bookstore that has so much junk in it, and this way I can look at books in the subject area I want, and then, on a rarer occasion, I'll go to the bookstore, maybe, when and if I'm in town. But bookstores put too much junk reading on their shelves for me to waste my time going to and from the store, and then waste more time in the store looking through all the other material I couldn't care less again. God Bless you.

Answer 3

I buy my books online. It's hard to get out of some of those book clubs because they still send you the literature for years after you quit. It's annoying.

Answer 4

Not me.

I borrow from the library and I buy from the thrift stores and yard sales. And people give away brand new books for free all day long on freecycle.

Answer 5

44,211,136