Talk:Oprah's Book Club

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Someone needs to figure out how to add Middlesex to the list. I can't seem to figure out how to do it in accordance with the way the last person who revised the list did it. I've tried, but it simply doesn't show up. Weird. flexpedition

Please read Help:Table. I've reinstated the list in table form. Also, you need to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~) for future reference. :) María (críticame) 15:43, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

This list of titles needs to be reviewed, as it seems that the dates given are a mix of the date that Oprah selected them and original publication date. It would probably be most useful to have them in chronological order by selection date, with a comment giving original publication date. —Michael Shields 06:44, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I've update it as you suggested. The dates the books were selected for the book club could still use some verification. I used a combination of the dates listed on Amazon.com (see External links) and the dates in the OBC Archives), but they are not consistent. I don't watch Oprah regularly or follow the book club (The James Frey thing brought me here). Maybe someone who does will have a better sense of this. -Crunch 13:18, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Garthwaite paper

The following block of text was deleted by User:Windowhouse (for reason in the edit comment):

In a 2012 study by economist [[Craig L. Garthwaite]] it was reported that while the book club increased sales of individual titles in the list, it caused an overall decrease in sales for the book industry as a whole.<ref>Craig L. Garthwaite (2012). [http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/garthwaite/htm/research.htm "You Get a Book! And You Get A Book: Demand Spillovers, Combative Advertising, and Celebrity Endorsements"]</ref> Since Oprah's selections were longer and more difficult classics that demanded greater time and energy to read, those people who were reading Oprah's books were not buying their usual fare of genre books, "there were statistically significant decreases for mysteries and action/adventure novels. Romances also saw a sales decline," following an Oprah endorsement. In the 12 weeks following an endorsement, "weekly adult fiction book sales decreased by a statistically significant 2.5 percent."<ref name=drum>{{cite web|url=http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/03/unintended-consequences-oprahs-book-clubs|title=The Unintended Consequences of Oprah's Book Club|date=Mar 1, 2012|accessdate=Mar 1, 2012|author=Kevin Drum}}</ref>

Couple points:

• The paper has been published on NBER's website (National Bureau of Economic Research) and reported on in the mainstream press. I believe this is sufficient to report about it on Wikipedia, under the title of a working paper.
• Windowhouse's contention that the paper is wrong in its methodology may or may not be correct, but it's not our place or job to review the paper at that detail. This is a serious paper by a serious academic working through a serious organization, if the paper really could be discounted over something so obvious seems unlikely that the people involved, all who are evidently quite smart and well trained, would not have already considered it. It's possible they missed this criticism, but it's also possible they address it in the paper/results. In any case, we as editors just report what papers say in a NPOV manner, we don't judge them for accuracy, other sources do that, and readers do that.

• The paper is available online.

-- Green Cardamom (talk) 17:47, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I just think the author has the causation backwards.  I don't think oprah's book club CAUSES the sales of non-oprah books to decline, I think it's the other way around: declines in the book market CAUSE oprah to announce a new book club pick.  Think about it: If you were oprah, would you announce your latest book club pick when the market is booming with the latest Harry potter selections, or would you wait until there was a lull in the market and no other popular books coming out to upstage you.  Oprah wants her book club selection to dominate the best seller lists so she probably checks with publishers to make sure no other popular books are coming out at the same time, and if they are, she probably waits a few weeks for the hype to die down, so that she can have the undivided attention of the reading public.  I agree that the economist is very smart and well trained, but I think he's underestimating how strategic oprah was in timing her book club endorsements.  I have yet to find anywhere in his paper where he addresses this concern.  The mainstream media shows no critical thinking skills and just serves as mindless stenographers for any wild speculation academics throw out there, but I think we here at wikipedia should aim for higher journalistic standards and not give WP:UNDUEWEIGHT to stuff that hasn't been well vetted.  If this study does not yet meet the standard for a peer reviewed journal, why should it meet our standard? 70.24.76.160 (talk) 00:29, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

There are many best sellers every single week of the year. There is no time when there are not many best sellers competing for audience attention, best sellers stay on the charts for months or years. Books are not like movies. You would have to show the Oprah announcements were made during a lull in the book market and there is no evidence for that, or even any evidence that the market has lulls comparable to the dips being reported here. That's pure speculation. Think about it, Oprah's announcements are fairly evenly spaced across the months and years, that would not be the case if she was timing supposed dips in the market. You give Harry Potter as an example, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was published in June 1999. In June 1999 Oprah announced Mother of Pearl as a book club selection. We can find other mega books that coincided with Oprah's book club selections. I understand your concerns but just because you disagree with the findings, based on speculation, is not a reason to keep it out of Wikipedia. We can report on it NPOV without saying it is factually true, it does not hurt to let readers know about the research and they can decide on their own. There is no undo weight, it is a single paragraph that is a very small part of the overall article. Green Cardamom (talk) 01:39, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

actually there is evidence, not only that the market has relative lulls but that oprah announced her book club selections during these lulls. On page 22 of the paper it states in the footnotes that only once in the seven year sample did oprah announce her book club pick during the same week as other popular books were released and the study decided to exclude this data! Talk about cherry picking the numbers. So not only does the study seem to be misinterpreting the cause of the statistics they report, but the statistics themselves are probably wrong since he excluded data that would have undermined his conclusion. I think even one paragraph is undue weight for a study that hasn't even been published. Unpublished research is usually excluded from wikipedia entirely. 70.24.76.160 (talk) 05:01, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately the math is beyond me to really understand the significance of what they are saying, it's a complicated statistic formula. I understand the logic of what you are saying, but it's unclear how valid the criticism is. For example, rather than picking dips in the market, Oprah picked normal periods and avoided the rare manic peak market for a hot title. The only way to really resolve this is to ask the author(s) about the criticism and see what the response is. It may turn out you have a point, but one that is not statistically significant, or one that is adjusted for elsewhere in the data. In any case, it's not our place to critique a primary source, we are supposed to rely on what secondary sources say (Mother Jones article). The paper has been published, on the web, it is available for sale for $5 from National Bureau of Economic Research (the Google link above is probably the authors personal copy and may be different from the version available for sale on NBER's website). NBER is a top-tier reliable organization and the paper was written by a reliable source and MJ is a reliable secondary source. I understand the concern about it being designated a "working paper" (ie. not yet published in a peer reviewed journal), so the text would indicate it is a working paper. Remember we are just reporting on it, we are not saying it is factually true, just reporting on the existence of the work, that is what we are supposed to do on Wikipedia. If you still disagree than I suggest we might need to open an RFC and get additional opinion. Green Cardamom (talk) 13:50, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I think that even if Oprah was simply ignoring the rare manic peaks for a hot title, that would have a statistically significant effect. Remember that the paper is only claiming that the overall book market declined by about 2.5% when Oprah selected a title. That's not very much and could easily be explained by her deliberately avoiding periods of hyper hot sales. The study is assuming that Oprah's selections are made at RANDOM times so that on average, book sales during the times Oprah announces her picks should be the same as book sales during times where she doesn't announce her picks, except for whatever effect is CAUSED by Oprah's announcement itself. But if Oprah only announces books when there is no other popular competition, that will bias down the average sales of all books during times she announces. It would be like trying to measure the height of the average person walking down the street, but deliberately waiting until people taller than you passed by before taking the measurement; that could easily bias your numbers down 2.5% lower than what they would have been using a truly random approach.

Now you say on Wikipedia we are supposed to just report on the existence of such works, and not judge them, however WP:UNDUEWEIGHT policy clearly implies that we are not supposed to acknowledge the existence of extreme minority view points. For example if a scientist wrote a working paper arguing that the earth was flat (unpublished in a peer reviewed journal), that would not be in wikipedia's article on the earth, and certainly wouldn't be the dominant voice discussing the earth's shape just because some web page sold that paper for $5 and Mother Jones talked about it, yet here we have an academic writing an equally minority view point (that Oprah's book club caused an overall decline in book sales) and you had it not only in Oprah's book club article, but as the dominant voice describing the club's impact on overall book sales. My concern is that there is this rush to publicize science, even before it is vetted and that has caused an enormous amount of misinformation in the culture. I don't know why you are so eager to include this paper in wikipedia that you can't even wait to see if a peer reviewed journal accepts it. I came to wikipedia to try to raise the bar in terms of our scientific reporting. I realize that the mainstream media will just report anything without any critical thinking or vetting, but an encyclopedia should have higher standards and I don't understand why you are opposed to that. If this paper gets published in a peer reviewed journal, then we'll know it has at least a modicum of credibility among the people qualified to judge it. Windowhouse (talk) 16:15, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Look I'm pretty confident I have the stronger position, rules wise, but recognize this is a difficult case that could be resolved on its own by just waiting, so I'm willing to do that. I'll make myself a reminder to check back in 6 months and see where the paper stands. Green Cardamom (talk) 21:42, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

American Economic Journal - a peer-reviewed reliable source - has accepted the paper for publication. Any complaint now is "I disagree with the paper" (WP:IDONTLIKEIT) which is fine but not reason to censor it from inclusion on Wikipedia. There is no "undue weight" since it's a short paragraph in a long article, and makes every effort to frame it as the POV of a single paper and researcher. If you would like to debate the paper's conclusions find reliable sources that provide counter-POVs, rather than trying to delete it from the article. Wikipedia reports on reliable sources, it doesn't endorse them, and that is all this is, reportage. -- GreenC 17:48, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

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Note: I've since update this link entirely—no reason it shouldn't link directly to NYT article in question, rather than a third party Mac homepage reproducing said article. ~~~~ Jacob Ford (talk) 09:30, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

2019 revival on Apple TV+

In September 2019, Oprah launched a new iteration of her book club as part of her partnership with Apple Inc.. See this link for the official press release. This means that there are three iterations of Oprah's Book Club:

1. The first iteration that was part as a segment of The Oprah Winfrey Show
2. The second iteration that was online only
3. The third (and current) iteration of the club which will have its own show on Apple TV+.

As the third iteration will be more regular than the second iteration, it should have its own page. For the third iteration, I want to create the page Oprah's Book Club (2019 TV Series) as this version will be headlined by the Apple TV+ interview series. Is this title okay or are there any other ideas? Also, should this paged be retitled like Oprah's Book Club (talk show segment)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Virin1009 (talk • contribs) 15:51, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Once you create that new page, please either ping me or update the link I just inserted into Carnegie Library: https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/924257339 Jacob Ford (talk) 19:22, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

I could agree for a third article, though a case for merging into a single article also exists and would solve the article naming mess. Because we now need a dab page, which should be Oprah Book Club, as none of them have a claim to primary. -- GreenC 19:58, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

User:Virin1009, do you plan to draft Oprah's Book Club (2019 TV Series)? I'd love to help you get started on it. If you don't plan to start one or don't respond in a few day I'll likely begin the draft myself. Jacob Ford (talk) 18:33, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

I don't think I have the time to create the draft article myself. Feel free to make the draft and let me know when the article is ready for review! Virin1009 (talk) 09:52, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Drafted and ready for review! Draft:Oprah's Book Club (2019 TV Series). This is my first from-scratch article so I welcome your honest feedback and advice. I could especially use some help with proper categorization and infoboxification, as well as a review of my somewhat-customized {{Episode table}}.

Okay, I'll see what I can do to get it up. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 22:07, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Move + DAB Proposal

Given the above and the now-pending graduation of Draft:Oprah's Book Club (TV series) to articlehood, I plan to do the following:

1. Move this page to Oprah's Book Club (talk show segment). Oprah's Book Club will automatically redirect to that new page.
2. Draft a new Draft:Oprah's Book Club page listing and differentiating the three iterations of OBC. Kind of a DAB page, but meatier. I think it could be a good home for history and information on the OBC franchise overall (much of that moved in from this article). See, for example, Star Trek, which certainly has plenty information of its own, but also serves to link to the numerous standalone articles on the various Star Trek TV series, books, and other spinoffs.
3. Once (and only once) that draft graduates to articlehood would it replace the Oprah's Book Club namespace.

I think this provides the most clarity on the three distinct iterations of the Club while doing the least to disrupt existing links to Oprah's Book Club, as they would continue redirect to this article (on the original talk show segment) in the short term, until the general-purpose article is ready. This gives any links which should link to the original talk show segment and not the general OBC franchise time to update.

Any oppositions to the above? Jacob Ford (talk) 04:49, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Yes. Overkill to have four articles. "I think it could be a good home for history and information on the OBC franchise overal". I agree. Put it all in the same article where it can be viewed coherently rather than confusing readers with a web of articles and dabs, which will eventually end up being combined by editors in the future anyway. -- GreenC 05:41, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Fair enough. OBC2.0 has long had its own article but I could see it folding back into this one (a project I'm happy to take on if you feel it's the best move). The Apple TV+ iteration, on the other hand, seems just as deserving of its own article as any other television series. Is there precedence for having a well-established television series as a section within a larger article? If so, please show me a good example so I can see best practices for linking and inclusion in TV-specific categories and templates. If not, we'll allow the new TV series to remain its own article but I can start working toward reframing this article as a description of the present-tense franchise rather than just the past-tense talk show segment. Let me know what you advise, and I'll get to work! Jacob Ford (talk) 09:13, 15 November 2019 (UTC)