Book club Donauland

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The Donauland book club, founded in 1950, developed from a classic book club in rural areas to one of Austria's leading media providers .

history

In 1950 Rudolf Kremayr (1905–1989) and Wilhelm Scheriau (born November 16, 1916) founded the Donauland book club and in 1951 the associated publishing house Kremayr & Scheriau . The founders relied on personal customer service by in-house employees and payment of the books in 3 monthly installments. The first title in the program was Eva Faschaunerin , a novel by the Carinthian author Maria Steurer. Rural-Alpine target groups and ideologically more “national” authors and material shaped the company's early days. In 1954, however, the first bookstore was opened in Vienna on Wipplingerstraße.

With the number of members growing rapidly, the book club had 310,000 members, 154 Viennese supervisors and 700 local agencies with 840 supervisors. In 1956, Donauland achieved a sensational success with 158,000 copies of Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind sold . The record community founded that year was merged with the book club in 1963. In view of the increasing difficulties in obtaining licenses for international bestsellers, a cooperation with the Bertelsmann book club Europaring came about in 1966 . The cooperation with the Bertelsmann group founded by Reinhard Mohn also led to a noticeable increase in the quality of the offer.

In 1969 Donauland merged with the Bertelsmann Club and the Europaring Salzburg. After rapid growth in the 1970s, the Donauland Foundation was established in 1975 for the 25th anniversary. Until 2016, they awarded the DANUBIUS Donauland non-fiction book prize, endowed with 100,000 schillings (later 7500 euros) . The first prize winner was Konrad Lorenz .

In 1980 Donauland received the state award and from then on was allowed to use the federal coat of arms in business dealings.

In 1985 the company achieved sales success that is still unsurpassed today with “Austria II” by Hugo Portisch (320,000 copies).

In 1989 the German Book Association in Austria and South Tyrol was taken over, and in 1990 the Austrian branch of the German Book Association . In view of the decline of the Gutenberg Book Guild, Donauland became the only major book club in Austria.

In 1992 the company founded the Magyar Könyvklub in Hungary and the Knižní Klub in the Czech Republic . After two years there were about 500,000 members in each country. From January 1, 2001, Donauland belonged to DirectGroup Bertelsmann , the holding company for the international book clubs of the media group.

In 2010 all branches and the headquarters in Austria were closed. The members were then looked after from Germany.

In 2015 the Bertelsmann Club in Germany was closed. At the beginning of February 2018 the Chamber of Labor warned against paying bills from Donauland, as the successor had nothing in common with the former "Donauland book club". As of June 1, 2018, the DONAULAND Kremayr & Scheriau GmbH & Co.KG book club existed at www.donauland.at, managed by S24D Shop24Direct GmbH in Vienna.

Donauland Non-Fiction Prize Danubius

The Donauland book club awarded the Danubius Donauland non-fiction book prize from 1975 to 2016 , together with ORF since 2000 .

literature

  • Murray G. Hall: Österreichische Verlagsgeschichte 1918–1938 , Vienna 1985, especially p. 351f.
  • Curt Vinz, Günter Olzog: Documentation of German-language publishers
  • Roger Charles Pfister: On the history of book clubs in Austria. A historical investigation . Diploma thesis University of Vienna 2000

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Literature Prize Winner ( Memento of the original from March 21, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. accessed on January 28, 2012  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.literaturpreisgewinner.de
  2. ^ "Never pay the bill": AK warns of bookseller "Donauland" , Die Presse February 2, 2018
  3. ↑ Literature award: Donauland-Sachbuch-Preis "Danubius" , Wiener Zeitung January 19, 2000