Publisher:Science Fiction Book Club

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History

Doubleday created the Science Fiction Book Club in 1953, offering one selection per month, with the first book appearing in March. This practice continued until July 1969, when the club began offering a second selection. Both books were sent to members who chose to receive them (or forgot to mail back the selection card!) Around this time additional selections were offered in seasonal announcements (Winter, Spring, etc.) This gave members a choice of up to 32 new books each year, while occasionally making available "alternate selectons" and cross-over selections from other Doubleday book clubs. These alternate selections were not automatically sent to club members. The practice of offering alternate selections gradually grew over the decades, from one or two in the 1970s, to a dozen or more in the late 2000s.

In the beginning the selections were mostly reprints of books originally published by Doubleday's trade division, and were of comparable quality. As the years went by, more publishers' books were made available as the monthly selection. These printings had to be reset to conform to Doubleday's printing presses, and were mostly of cheaper quality.

The German media corporation Bertelsmann A.G. purchased the Bantam Doubleday Dell publishing group in 1986, and in the process acquired the Doubleday book clubs, including the SFBC. In 2000, Bertelsmann and Time Warner (the two largest media conglomerates in the world) combined their direct book sales (Doubleday Direct Inc. and Book-of-the-Month Club), creating Bookspan, the current owner of the SFBC. In May of 2007, it was announced that long-time SFBC editor Ellen Asher would be taking "early retirement" In the Age of the Internet, the future of the SFBC and all direct sales publishing is in question. The current Senior Editor is Rome Quezada and their website is www.sfbc.com.

Original Publications

In the late 60s, the SFBC began publishing first world hardcover editions of titles that were paperback original. And for the first time in 1970, even printed these hardcover editions several months before their paperback editions. These latter editions usually appeared under the Nelson Doubleday imprint. This imprint was also used for exclusive book club editions of omnibus volumes, making all Nelson Doubleday publications true first editions. As a rule (with few exceptions) when the book club edition preceded the paperback, the Nelson Doubleday imprint was used. When the book club edition followed the paperback, the original publisher was credited on the SFBC edition. When Bertelsmann purchased Doubleday and its book clubs, the Nelson Doubleday imprint was retired and the GuildAmerica Books imprint was created.

  • Nelson Doubleday (1970-1989)
The imprint goes back even further as the publisher of Doubleday's original book club editions. The first known SFBC edition to use this imprint was Robert Silverberg's Downward to the Earth.
  • GuildAmerica Books (1989-1998)
In a move to distinguish its book club division (Doubleday Direct) from its trade publications (The Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group), Bertelsmann created this imprint, which lasted until its merger of Doubleday Direct with Book-of-the-Month-Club to form Bookspan.
  • The Science Fiction Book Club (1998-present)
At the end 1996 and the first months of 1997, the SFBC sold a series of six novella-length publications called "The Science Fiction Book Club Collection", offering one volume for each selection period. They were discounted to a remarkable (for its time) $2.98 with any additional purchase. This was the first use of the name on any of their publications. It wasn't until 1998 that it was finally decided to publish original titles under this imprint, possibly as an effort to create a "brand image" for the Science Fiction Book Club. Later, Bookspan created two sub-imprints: SFBC Science Fiction and SFBC Fantasy.

Publication Series

Over the years, the book club has issued several uniform series including Science Fiction Classics (five volumes each spring, 1978-1981), the Science Fiction Book Club Collection (six award-winning novellas, 1996-1997) and The SFBC 50th Anniversary Collection (40 numbered volumes, 2003-2007).

Identification

Until November 1996, no SFBC editions were ever identified as being published by the Science Fiction Book Club. (Ill Met in Lankhmar by Fritz Leiber is the first known publication to credit the SFBC as the publisher.) The publisher as stated in the book was always the original publisher of the title. Even original editions published exclusively for the club carried the Nelson Doubleday imprint. Only in recent years has the Science Fiction Book Club imprint been used on reprints of classic works and original omnibuses (see Original Publications above.)

Dustjackets

Cover artwork was identical to the trade edition, so, except for the standardized size of approximately 22cm, the outward appearance showed no indication of the book being a book club reprint. There was never a price printed on the front inside flap, the usual location for trade editions. For thirty-five years (1953-1988), there was the additional slug line "Book Club Edition" printed at the bottom of the front inside flap. (Some book dealers occasionally use the abbreviation "BCE" without indicating that the item for offer is a book club reprint.) This practice ceased sometime in the spring of 1988, possibly because Bertelsmann, who had purchased Doubleday in 1986, began subbing print jobs to other presses. All printings of selections from Doubleday's various book clubs (The Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club, The Mystery Guild, The History Book Club, The Stephen King Library, etc.) carried the same slug line, so this can't be used as proof that the book was ever an offering of the SFBC. The dustjackets also printed the de facto catalog numbers (see below) which never appeared within the books themselves.

Gutter Codes

From 1958 to 1988 (just after their purchase by Bertelsmann) Doubleday printed a code on or near the last page of text in both their trade and book club editions. Bibliographers have deciphered this code as a printing date. [For more information see Gutter Codes.] These codes can be used by bibliophiles to determine which copies are first printings, thus making them possibly of more value to collectors. This is especially the case when the SFBC edition has been identified as the true first edition.

ISBNs

For almost forty years, SFBC editions never printed the ISBN of the original edition, and never carried an edition statement (e.g. First Edition, First American Edition). Even when club members were offered a selection originally published by Doubleday itself, their copies had the "First Edition" slug line removed from the copyright page. The club first used an ISBN on their original publications (mostly omnibuses) in 1989 under the GuildAmerica imprint (the first known publication), but this did not become a standard practice until mid-1993. The first ISBNs assigned had the prefix 1-56865- followed by three digits and a checksum. Because only 1,000 publications could be assigned that prefix, it became necessary to obtain a new ISBN prefix. In January 1999, they started using the prefix 0-7394- (followed by four digits and a checksum) from which 10,000 publications could be assigned.

At the end of 2003, the first publications with a new prefix began appearing (1-58288-). This prefix was also limited to 1,000 publications and has been used sparingly since. Fast approaching the limits of the 0-7394- prefix, two new prefixes appeared. 2008 saw the first publication with the prefix 1-60751-, and 1-61523- publications appeared in 2009. (Both of these prefixes are followed by three digits and a checksum). All books with these prefixes are not necessarily published as selections of the SFBC, but they are all published by Bookspan for any one of their various book club divisions.

It was also in the nineties that the book club began reprinting some trade editions without changing the copyright page. This page would include the ISBN of the trade edition, but is not the ISBN for this particular edition. It is not entered into the ISFDB record for the SFBC edition.

Summation of SFBC ISBNs

1-56865-XXX-X (1989-1999)
0-7394-XXXX-X (1999-2004)
1-58288-XXX-X (2003-2008)
1-60751-XXX-X (2008-2009)
1-61523-XXX-X (2009-)

Catalog Numbers

From the 1968 until the end of 1980, there was a four-digit number printed on the back inside flap of the dustjacket, which book dealers and collectors use as a de facto catalog number, although there has never been an official statement as to the meaning of this number. In the beginning these numbers were assigned in roughly numerical order, but over the years became somewhat random. Also, some reprints of pre-1968 titles may have been retro-assigned catalog numbers. This numbers is not printed in the book itself, only on the dust jacket, and with the addition of a fifth digit it became the catalog number in the SFBC's announcement flyer. For example, John Varley's The Ophiuchi Hotline (1977) has "2205" printed at the bottom of its back flap. The catalog number printed in the December 1977 flyer is "#22053".

This four-digit number began appearing on the back of the dustjacket at the end of 1980. By the mid-1980s four digit numbers were exhausted and five digits appeared. Some titles that had previously been assigned four-digit numbers were reprinted with a "0" prefixed to their original number. Today, the number can be as many as eight digits long, although there still doesn't appear to be any pattern as to how they are assigned. Without the "Book Club Edition" slug line on the inside flap of the dustjacket (discontinued in the late 1980s), this number has become one of the last true identifiers for book club editions (along with the lack of a printed price.)

ISFDB Entry Standards

Because of the special circumstances described in the identification section, different standards are required for the entry of SFBC editions into the ISFDB. For more information about entering SFBC editions go to this help page.


Book Listings

1953-59 1960-64 1965-69 1970-74 1975-79 1980-84 1985-89 1990-93 1994 1995
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

These tables list club selections and were created from the following sources:


There is an older SFBC list generated from the ISFDB database data in January 2005.

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