Bookspan Launches Conservative Book Club and Hires Brad Miner as Executive Editor

    NEW YORK, May 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Bookspan, which operates over 30 clubs
 including the Book-of-the-Month Club, the Literary Guild and the History Book
 Club, is launching a new club devoted to books with a conservative viewpoint.
 Brad Miner, a publishing and magazine veteran, will serve as Editor of the
 as-of-yet-unnamed club, which is expected to be introduced later this year.
     Mr. Miner was also named an Executive Editor at Bookspan whose
 responsibilities include acquiring conservative-oriented books for the
 company's other book clubs. He reports to Mel Parker, Senior Vice President
 and Editorial Director and his appointment is effective immediately.
     "Increasingly, readers are telling us they want to read books with a
 conservative point of view," said Markus Wilhelm, Bookspan's Chief Executive
 Officer. "The best seller lists are filled with such books by authors
 including Bill O'Reilly, Bernard Goldberg, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity and
 Michael Savage, all conservatives.  The vast majority of popular radio talk
 show hosts are conservative and there is the popularity of the Fox News
 Channel."
     As further evidence that there is a market for a conservative book club,
 Mr. Wilhelm pointed to the success of conservative Regnery Publishing as well
 as two publishers, Crown Publishing Group and Penguin Group USA, last month
 announcing nonfiction conservative imprints.  Both imprints are expected to
 publish 15 books each annually initially.
     "We believe that with the hiring of Brad Miner, we're establishing
 immediate credibility with publishers, agents, authors and members as well as
 conservatives," said Mr. Parker. "Nearly half of Americans polled saying they
 consider themselves conservatives, we believe this is an underserved
 audience."
     Mr. Miner is author of several books, including "The Concise Conservative
 Encyclopedia: 200 of the Most Important Ideas, Individuals, Incitements and
 Institutions that Have Shaped the Movement" (Free Press, 1996) and "Good
 Order: Right Answers to Contemporary Questions" (Touchstone, 1995) as well as
 the forthcoming "The Compleat Gentleman: Chivalry in a Democratic Age" (Spence
 Publishing, 2003).
     From 1989 until 1992, Mr. Miner was Literary Editor of National Review as
 well as Editor-in-Chief of National Review Books. Prior to that, Mr. Miner
 worked as sales manager and then senior editor at Bantam Books and Harper &
 Row. Among the authors he has worked with during his career are Sidney Hook,
 Evan S. Connell, Hal Lindsey, Chuck Yeager, Mario Vargas Llosa and Aleksandr
 Solzhenitsyn.
     Most recently, Mr. Miner was an independent consultant.
 
     About BOOKSPAN
     BOOKSPAN is the premier direct marketer of general interest and specialty
 book clubs.  With more than 9 million members, its book clubs include
 Book-of-the-Month Club, The Literary Guild(R), Quality Paperback Book Club(R),
 Doubleday Book Club(R), and more than 30 others.  Created in March 2000,
 BOOKSPAN is a partnership between Doubleday Direct, Inc. (owned by Bertelsmann
 AG) and Book-of-the-Month Club Holdings LLC (owned by AOL Time Warner Inc.).
 
 

SOURCE  Bookspan