It's really happening

There’s a frenzy of activity here at Curious Reading Club headquarters, which some people with limited imaginations may also choose to describe as "I'm typing a lot on the computer in our spare room."

The club website went live a week or two back, just before I went on a long-planned vacation—because why wouldn't you launch days before going to Tokyo for 10 days?—but now I'm back and things are actually, really happening. Folks are signing up, stock is arriving, and I'm nervous and a little jet-lagged.

I'm going to announce our first monthly pick next week, on Wednesday May 1. That's when we'll start shipping out copies. It's a fantastic book about one of my obsessions, by an author who's local to me. You'll enjoy it.

But before we get there, I wanted to take a moment to expand on why I'm doing this and how it works.

For me, it all starts with words. They've always been a way of learning and a manner of escape, whether it's reading, writing, editing, or simply sharing. As a kid, I powered through everything I could get my hands on, from novels-that-were-too-old-for-me to days poring over the encyclopedia. At college, studying literature, I had to get through several books a week (and usually managed it, though not always). And my professional career has been underscored by words, too: as a journalist, editor and publisher, my reading habits have expanded to approximately one zillion online articles to sifting through print magazines, journals and research papers to digging into books both big and small.

To put it in a sentence: Words are my way of navigating the world. My therapist describes this kind of information habit as "vorocious", an almost-too-cute combination of voracious and ferocious that I can go with.

So why the reading club? Well, in my last job, nearly everything I read was either directly or indirectly related to a single person (you may have heard of him.) That was a lot more fascinating than it may sound, especially given that the person in question had a very broad and intriguing set of interests… but it also had its natural limits. Since I left that job a couple of months ago, I've turned my reading habit back towards the outside world, and honestly it's been supremely invigorating. I've read new fiction, classic tales, short stories, lots of longform journalism and fresh newsletters, old books, new books, yet-to-be-released books. And of course, I've wanted to share a lot of it.

At the same time, I nurse a subscription addiction. Aside from the many publications I subscribe to, I find great ideas from Stack, a surprise monthly magazine that is one of my all-time favorites. And I am greatly amused by Tim Hwang's Trade Journal Cooperative, a quarterly random "back alleys of capitalism". Subscriptions even go beyond words: I fuel my middle-aged-man record habit with a subscription to Vinyl Me Please.

So, I started thinking about whether I could create my own bundle to share books I love with other people. As I turned the idea over, I decided to focus it in on non-fiction books. Why? Because they are such a great place to find ideas, because there is such a long tail of fantastic authors, and because I don't think most of the best stuff gets enough attention—most of it goes on the same handful of airport-friendly reads.

The next step was some back of the envelope calculations and a little bit of research, and I found that most publishers and distributors will sell you wholesale copies of books at something like 50-60% of the retail price... as long as you buy a minimum of 25 to 30 copies (even cheaper with larger numbers.) OK, I thought, that's some up-front cash, but I can manage it. Add in shipping costs, packaging, all that jazz, and you're talking another $6-10.

As I carried on running the numbers, I added a couple more constraints. First, I figured we'd mainly look at hardbacks, because I think the product is more satisfying and the price is more standardized. Second, after some investigation, I decided for sure to go US-only, because shipping internationally is hard and wildly expensive. Third, I decided that while I don't need this club to make profit, I do need it to eventually be sustainable so that it can carry itself along. With all that in mind, I reached out to a few authors to see if they'd be interested in doing Q&A sessions for a potential readership, and the answer was an unequivocal yes.

With all that, I had the beginnings of an idea: A book club that shares terrific work, brings in great writers, and can run at breakeven if we can just get to that minimum order size—just two dozen subscribers.

So then the question turned from how to why not?

This was the real turning point, because all of the best things in my life have happened when I let optimism in.

Today, we're not at the magic 25 number, but we're closing in. So please, if you haven't subscribed already then take a look. If you're outside the US, all you have to do is stay signed up to this mailing list and you'll get invites to our monthly Q&A sessions and regular reading recommendations from me.

And if you have already joined up, then THANK YOU and it would be great if you could take a moment to promote the club to folks you know. I've already got the next few months picks in mind: they are varied, fascinating, and deep— and I am certain you'll love them all.

I’m excited to make the announcement of the first pick next week, and in the meantime...

Onward

Bobbie