IN BRIEF
Q&A Gustavo Lembert
(always literary fiction), a bookmark and an exclusive magazine, all in a slipcase. It sells for around €13. The magazine supplies additional information to the reader: interviews with the curator of the package; relevant texts, such as translator’s or criti- cal notes; and TAG Curatorship subscribers also get a giſt every month. Sometimes it is linked to the book’s plot, other times we apply our brand to daily objects, such as calendars and planners. TAG New Releases is the cheaper option—it sells for €8. It contains an exclusive paperback (commercial fiction), a book- mark, a poster featuring artwork and an infographic.
Can you describe the Brazilian book market and literacy rates? Brazil is not a country of readers. Illiterates amount to around 11.5 million Brazilians, and functional illiteracy is also very high. However, the Brazilian book market is reinventing itself, and book clubs have been playing a huge role in this. Literature still has to be more approachable in Brazil—potential readers are drawn away from it either by deficient reading programmes in childhood, or high book prices. Book clubs have been improving the relationship of consumers with literature, but the average Brazilian reader still only reads around three books a year. We believed this could change, and decided to be part of this change.
How has the company grown in recent times? We have experienced two epic growth surges. The first was aſter around a year of operation. Our launch year, 2014, was a full-blown failure: we were a team of five, ready to give up on the business. But we ended 2015 with 2,000 subscribers, and a year later we had 12,000. In February 2018, with a team of 90 profes- sionals and the launch of TAG New Releases, we experienced a second wave of growth. We now have almost 35,000 subscribers, and aim to hit 100,000 by 2020.
24 11th October 2018
CURATORSHIP PACKAGE
AN EXAMPLE OF TAG’S
a panel of testers all around the country. We want readers to count on us to present them first- hand with the new John Boyne, Stephen King, and so on.
What were the main challenges when you set up the book club? At first, nobody understood what a subscription book club was. People didn’t believe
AN EXAMPLE OF TAG’S NEW RELEASES PACKAGE
The average Brazilian reader still only reads around three books a year. We believed this could change
Which authors and books have you included? We have brought to Brazil best- selling authors such as Michael Connelly and Karin Slaughter; we have edited everything, from the likes of Buchi Emecheta [a Nigerian-born British author whose work was picked to distribute to TAG subscribers by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie], to traditional Brazilian literature such as Rachel de Queiroz. Our readers’ favourites have been John Williams’ Stoner and Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake, and also Ayobámi Adébáyo’s Stay With Me.
How do you choose authors and books? We search for relevant players in the culture field, “curators”, as we call them, and ask them to provide a list of five books that have impacted their life. A team then deliberates on which book to print, based on literary merit,
35,000
Subscribers to TAG; at the end of 2015, the figure was just 2,000
€13
Cost of a subscription to TAG’s premium (R$55.90) Curatorship package
€8
Cost of a subscription (R$39.90) to TAG New Releases
sales numbers (we don’t go for bestsellers in the Curatorship subscription) and the fit with our customer base. For New Releases, we receive submissions from publishers and an in-house team then consults
they could trust us. “Why would I pay to receive a book I didn’t choose?”, they asked. Also, most publishers thought book clubs belonged to the past, so they didn’t even want to discuss giving us special conditions. All that, added to the fact that we had no idea whatsoever about how to work with digital marketing...
What are the challenges now? We’ve just launched a new club, so we are trying to figure out the main differences among our readers, and how to communicate with them. Having only one club was easier because everybody focused only on that. Also, anyone who works in a subscription-based business will warn you about churn and retention. It’s always hard to keep the club growing.
Where do you see opportunities? I see three main opportunities: opening new labels, expanding our e-commerce (where we sell literary products—such as mugs, T-shirts, bags, etc—and books related to those sent to our subscribers), and going internationally. We have received a few offers to open TAG in other countries, and we are thinking about how to do that.
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