How Celebrity Book Clubs Actually Work

In the fall of 2019, I found myself wandering around Times Square in search of a billboard featuring National Book Award-winner Ta-Nehisi Coates’ debut novel, The Water Dancer. “I’m not sure what street it’s on, but you'll see it,” the book’s marketer had told me that morning, so there I was, dodging tourists with my head and iPhone turned to the sky. At the time, I ran social media for Random House (Coates’ publisher). We typically celebrated a book’s publication week on the company’s Instagram account by posting a stylized photograph of the finished book, but when Oprah Winfrey gets involved, as she did by selecting The Water Dancer for her eponymous book club, the publicity, sales, marketing, and advertising plans expand exponentially. It’s not every day in publishing you get to see Oprah and Ta-Nehisi Coates in conversation at The Apollo Theater.