Although digital reading and devices have gained popularity in the last few years (especially since COVID halted many businesses - bookstores and libraries included), nothing beats having a physical book in hand. Similarly, book box subscriptions have also grown in popularity and offer readers a curated selection of books (and often goodies) delivered directly to your doorstep. Book box subscriptions are also a great way to get introduced to new books - and to grow your library, especially if you’re looking to collect limited/special editions of books.
I’ve subscribed to many book boxes over the last couple of years and I’m giving my recommendations and thoughts on what’s worth the money every month and what’s not.
CRATEJOY
If you’re brand new to book box subscriptions, a great place to start is Cratejoy. This website curates monthly subscription boxes for literally everything. (It’s a great site to grab a box as a gift for someone!) The site supports tons of small businesses - which is great. The only downside of Cratejoy is that - despite some some-time/one-time discounts, the boxes are almost always more expensive on the site than going through the actual business.
PRO TIP: Shop around on Cratejoy. If you find a box you like - check out the business’s site first to ensure you’re getting the best deal possible.
THE BOOKISH BOX
The Bookish Box is hands-down one of my favorite book boxes and they only seem to get better with time. I really appreciate that they have a variety of boxes (at differing costs) - including a YA and Adult selection, a “goodies” box vs. a “book only” box, etc. They are relatively priced; the “Adult Book & Goodies” box which I subscribe to is $48 a month and includes shipping. They also allow you to skip months if you didn’t want to order the book every month. The books themselves are absolutely stunning and are hardcover special editions, often with sprayed edges and foiling.
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| The best bang for your buck if you enjoy special editions of books! |
The one - and probably biggest - con to this particular box is their shipping timelines. I’m not sure how much of that is determined by these special editions or understaffing or whatever…but it takes MONTHS for these boxes to get here. Case in point - my March 2023 box JUST arrived two weeks ago (6 months after I paid/ordered it). I had other special edition book boxes from other companies and none took that long to get a book.
THE REVEAL BOOK BOX
The Reveal Book Box is a good box for romance readers, as they send out strictly romance books. The price is great for what you get - I subscribed to the “4 Books & Goodies” box and it cost me $43.95 per month. They offer three different boxes (2 books/4 books/6 books). Each book comes signed by the author and I think it’s great that they offer a mostly indie selection of authors. Like other book box subscriptions, they also allow you to skip a month if you want.
I ended up discontinuing my subscription with Reveal mostly because I wasn't reading through the books as quickly (to be fair, some that were sent to me were not necessarily ones I would pick out for myself - which could have been both a good and a bad thing). I also wanted to put my monthly book fund money toward other subscription boxes and had to make a choice.
UNPLUGGED BOOK BOX
I had subscribed to Unplugged and had them longer than I did other subscriptions. The cost per box was $39.99 (Adult Box) but paid $12 for shipping, bringing the grand total for the box to $51.99 per month. They had a good variety of boxes (boxes with goodies vs. book only) and many had newly released books within them. They were also pretty consistent with delivery times, which is great considering the luck I had with other boxes.
Some of my cons were that they often included bath products/goodies that weren’t always up to par - many times they were from smaller boutiques and shops and while I appreciated them supporting other artists/small businesses, as someone with sensitive skin, I really needed to know the products I was using were legit. There were also no special editions or hardcovers.
Like Reveal, I eventually ended my subscription and put the money toward other book subscriptions. (However, I will say that they recently announced a new “Romantasy” book box subscription that I might have to check out!)
BOOK OF THE MONTH
This is one of my newer book box subscriptions, even though I want to say that they’ve been around the longest. Book of the Month offers a hardcover book for $17.99 (shipping included); you can purchase more than one book, but it’s $17.99 per additional book for the first three months and then $10.99 per book after those three months. BOTM has newly released and about to be released books which is great! They also offer discounts to new users - I got my first book for $9.99. I pay more for hardcover books at Barnes & Nobel - so even the $17.99 price tag seemed reasonable to me to get a new book before it hit B&N or Amazon.
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| Books have always been cool, IMHO. |
The only con I’ve seen so far is that 3-month waiting period to get additional picks at the discounted rate of $10.99.
AARDVARK BOOK CLUB
Shortly after joining BOTM, I also heard about Aardvark. Aardvark is BOTM’s top competitor, offering books at the same price point ($17.99 shipped) and also offering additional books for $10.99 - without the 3-month waiting period!
Like BOTM, I was also able to get a discount code for joining which dropped that first book’s price. The books are also hardcovers and newly released titles.
One con I’ve experience so far is that the selection for Aardvark isn’t as extensive as BOTM is currently. When I went to add additional titles for Aarvark, they were “sold out.” I don’t know if this was because I started a subscription so late in the month and cycle. I will have to see how this next month compares when I get access to the books.
Whichever book box subscription you decide to go with, make sure that the subscription works for you and provides you with what you’re ultimately looking for whether that is special edition books, newly released titles, indie authors, or more. And if you know of any other ones, please share below! I’m always looking for my next book box.
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