View source for SF Book-of-the-Month Clubs

{{fancy2|text=
After the [[Second World War]] a number of attempts were made to offer selections well-chosen from the flood of books which began to appear about 1948. [[Fantasy Guild]] was one of several semipro attempts at a book-of-the-month club for [[stfnists]]; this one, HQ in San Francisco, chose [[h f heard|Heard's]] ''The Lost Cavern and Others'' as its first selection, and ''World of Null-A'' as its second. It lasted at least thru August 1948, and even distributed some dividend books, such as ''And Some Were Human'', to its membership. The [[Fantasy Book Club of New York]], November '48, planned a bimonthly bulletin and offered such fine selections as ''The Porcelain Magician'', ''Skylark III'', ''Without Sorcery'', and ''Pattern for Conquest''. A more [[fannish]] attempt at a book club was the [[Fantasy and Science Fiction Book Club]] -- no relation to the [[prozine]] or bookshop of this name -- hatched by [[Ron Rentz]] in 1952 which was supposed to be non-profit and doubtless was. Its first (and only) selection was [[Kurt Vonnegut]]'s ''Player Piano''. [[Doubleday]] launched its successful (commercially, that is) [[SF Book Club]] in 1953. In [[England]], [[Sidgewick & Jackson]] publishers operate a [[UK Science Fiction Book Club|Science Fiction Book Club]], offering a bimonthly list of cheap [but reportedly good] reprints, at 4/6 to 6/ (65@<&#162;>@-85@<&#162;>@). 
 
It strikes your chronicler that the error of these clubs lay in selling good, and expensive, books from the [[SF]] specialist publishing houses, which most [[fans]] would get anyway even if special arrangements were not made. [[Doubleday]] and [[Sidgewick & Jackson]] did things on the large scale and could produce cheapsky stuff with low overhead. 
}}

{{publishing}}
[[Category:fancy2]]
[[Category:publishing]]