ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the establishment, growth and development of the Richard and Judy Book Club (RJBC) as a trusted brand can be best understood through positioning books as an experience commodity that require consumers to negotiate risk to be rewarded with the pleasure of consumption. It outlines the shifting industrial and social contexts in which RJBC was uniquely placed to assume cultural authority and arbitrate amongst changing cultural attitudes to book buying and book reading. The chapter also posits that instrumental in building this structure was readers understanding of reading as a shared social experience. It analyses the growth of and its canny appropriation of the newly developed democratized structure within an online environment that could mimic offline bookshop browsing and replicate the book group experience.
