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Any author whose work gets selected to be a part of a celebrity book club knows that it could change their life. It’s not a guarantee, but there are plenty of writers who are clamoring to be a part of one A-list group that has been a financial game-changer for many.
Reese’s Book Club, helmed by Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon, revealed to The New York Times that it was ageism that took her career in this direction. “When I was about 34, I stopped reading interesting scripts,” she admitted. “When there’s a big economic shift in the media business, it’s not the superhero movies or independent films we lose out on. It’s the middle, which is usually where women live. The family drama. The romantic comedy. So, I decided to fund a company to make those kinds of movies.” That’s why she launched her Pacific Standard production company with Bruna Papandrea and optioned Gone Girl and Wild for the big screen — and the rest, as they say, is history.
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Witherspoon’s book club was eventually folded into her media company, Hello Sunshine, which she sold in 2021 for a whopping $900 million to Candle Media. She is on the board and still runs the day-to-day operations, but some of that windfall has trickled down to the authors selected to be a part of her monthly club. “The unexpected piece of it all was the economic impact on these authors’ lives,” the 48-year-old said while sharing that one writer was the first person in her family to become a homeowner. “She texted me a picture of the key. I burst into tears.”
Her support for the authors isn’t just a one-and-done month either. Witherspoon’s team promotes the pick from hardcover to paperback and even has the veteran authors mentor rising writers through her Lit Up program for underrepresented voices. Oprah Winfrey and Jenna Bush Hager have had great success with their own book clubs, but Witherspoon’s is considered the gold standard these days. “This is the equivalent of winning the lottery for these authors,” Bookscan executive director Kristen McLean told Vox in 2019. The most crucial part of the Legally Blonde star’s selections, though, is that “a woman has to be driving the story.”
“They are driving the narrative, they have agency in the story, they are not the side character, they are the one determining how the narrative goes,” Hello Sunshine CEO Sarah Harden told the media outlet. Witherspoon’s drive to find roles for herself through female-driven literature not only changed her career, but it shaped many authors’ lives and force Hollywood to take a look at the strong market they’ve been missing. Women want to see themselves represented on the big and small screen beyond a superhero costume.
Before you go, click here to see all the best picks from Reese Witherspoon’s book club.
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