Recently Stacey shared on our blog about hosting a book club at her home…and I am an avid book clubber myself! So I was interested to read this article in PW about an author who set a personal goal of visiting 100 book clubs. And she is well on her way! Thanks to Skype, Nomi Eve was able to visit book clubs all over the country, sometimes several in one day!

My book club has never had an author visit like this, though we have a few times gone to author events for a book that we read. It’s always a lot of fun to chat with an author about their work, and I imagine even more of a thriller for readers who do not have the pleasure of working in publishing and meeting authors all the time! On the other hand, my book club has often had lively discussions when a couple of us strongly disliked a book – and that certainly can’t happen if the author is present (unless you’re a fan of awkward moments…).

But the really fascinating thing that Nomi Eve experienced was the snowball effect:

What happened was that for every book club I visited, I got invited to another. A book club member’s sister, or cousin, or neighbor, or sister-in-law heard about my book club visits and invited me to their book club. So when I had 20, I really had 40; when I had 40, I really had 80, and so on and so on.

That’s some powerful word-of-mouth when you consider that a book club visit likely means 8-10 books purchased. So 20 visits turning into 40 visits is like 200 books sold turning into 400 books sold!

If you’re in a book club, what do you think about author visits? Ever had one? Authors, would you enjoy meeting with book clubs or would you find it nerve-wracking?