Bookspan Breaks Out Mosaico

Book Club Seeks Hispanic Market

by Brianna Yamashita -- Críticas, 9/1/2001

In time for the celebration of Hispanic Heritage month (Sept. 15-Oct. 15), Bookspan, the joint book club partnership between Bertelsmann and Time Warner, will launch a book club on August 31 that is committed to bringing Spanish-language books to the nation's rapidly growing Hispanic population. The club is named Mosaico (Mosaic), a term that reflects the diversity of Latino groups in the United States as well as the diversity of the club's offerings.

"We want to serve the different sectors of the Hispanic population," Carolina Conde, the club's editor-in-chief, told Críticas. To accomplish this goal, Mosaico will offer a wide selection of frontlist and backlist titles by popular Hispanic and American authors. Approximately 75%- 80% of the 105 titles on Mosaico's initial list will consist of Spanish-language books while the remaining percentage will include books in English.

Mosaico has been closely modeled after Black Expressions, the book club that Bookspan launched in September of 1999 to target the African American community. As in Black Expressions, members can join Mosaico by buying three books for a dollar each and then four more books over the next two years at up to 25% off the publisher's price. This attractive deal has already earned Black Expressions close to 400,000 members, and Bookspan hopes that a large direct-mail campaign coupled with the club's interactive website (www.clubmosaico.com) and unique, four-color monthly magazine--featuring 100 new titles, author interviews, book excerpts, recipes, and member feedback--will help Mosaico match its sister's success.

Over 11 years ago, Time Warner attempted to launch a Hispanic book club that never got off the ground. Although Michelle Berger, v-p of new product development at Bookspan's Booksonline, can only speculate as to why the club didn't succeed, she feels confident that the market is now ready for Mosaico. "The size and strength of [the Hispanic] market is now at a point where it simply cannot be ignored," she told Críticas, citing figures from the 2000 census indicating that the Hispanic population in the United States has grown 58% since the '90 census. According to data from the spring of 2000, 47% of the adult Hispanic population purchased one or more books in the last 12 months compared to 53% of the total U.S. population. These figures indicate that Hispanics are indeed strong book buyers, and, most likely, the discrepancy between the two populations is due to the availability of Spanish-language books. Berger agrees, adding that "the distribution mechanism for Spanish books in this country, although improving over the years, is still not where it should be given the size of this market." She hopes that Mosaico can help bridge this gap.

Bookspan is not the only company that has been working to make Spanish-language books more accessible to Hispanic readers, however. Círculo de Lectores, an independent book club with about 35,000 subscribers, has been in business since the late '80s by using print-on-demand methods. Although they only offer a 20% discount and a catalog every two months, they have withstood the test of time. Although Bookspan recognizes Círculo's presence in the market, Berger contends that the main distinction between Círculo de Lectores and Mosaico is that the former markets to its existing member base only, whereas Mosaico will actively seek to recruit new members through direct mailings and marketing. In this manner, Mosaico hopes to become the Hispanic reader's most convenient, simple, and rapid connection to Spanish-language books.