Book of the Month: A subscription box review

[TeenHelp]

Book of the Month: A subscription box review
By Jenna (~Abibliophobe~)

Book of the Month is a subscription service for people who love to read. On the first of each month subscribers are given a list and description of five books chosen by a panel of Book of the Month judges. The subscriber is able to choose one of the five books and it will be shipped to them. The books that they feature are new release hardcovers and some of the ones that they choose are highly anticipated by a lot of readers or are by popular authors. Each month’s picks include a range of genres which makes it a subscription service that plenty of people could end up enjoying. From my experience they do tend to focus a bit more on literary fiction, historical fiction and thrillers but they have featured a few fantasy novels. Book of the Month tends to focus on adult novels but they have been known to throw in a few Young Adult books as well.

One of the things that I like about Book of the Month is that they aren’t overly expensive. I currently have a 3 month subscription and pay $14.99 per month. I could choose to get a 6 month subscription and pay $13.99 per month or I could enroll for their 12 month program and pay $11.99 per month. The only con to this is that if you get a 3 month, 6 month or 12 month subscription you have to pay the entire amount up front. I am currently going with the 3 month because that amounts to about $45 every three months which is a bit easier for me to manage right now. You also get shipping for free with this subscription box so the price doesn’t end up going up which tends to happen with the other subscription boxes that I have used.

Book of the Month also gives their subscribers the option to add up two other hardcover books for $9.99 each. If you are unable to choose just one of their current months picks you can add an additional two or you can browse a list of ‘extra books’ that they have linked. Most of the extra picks tend to be books from previous months which gives you a chance to pick up books you might have missed out on in the past. The one issue I have been made aware of with Book of the Month and extra books is that if you have 3, 6 or 12 month subscription they will use those credits instead of giving you the option to pay the $9.99 for the extra book. For some people this ends up working out well but for other people it leads to their subscription not lasting as long as they intended. I have contacted Book of the Month about the issue because it was supposed to be fixed as of March 1st. They said the issue should be resolved in the next few months. They were also really kind about the inconvenience and gave me an extra credit. I am not certain how this works with gift subscriptions either because for the past few months I have had a gift subscription and have been able to pay the extra $9.99 for an extra book.

There are a few cons to Book of the Month; the biggest one is that when you subscribe you only receive one hardcover book per month. A large majority of the other subscription boxes include book themed items such as bookmarks and candles. However, the subscription boxes that come with book themed items tend to be quite a bit more costly than Book of the Month. The other downside is that shipping can take a while; the book I received in January ended up taking close to twelve days to get here. Given that shipping is free I am willing to put up with the delay in shipping but I know there are some people who don’t like that. Another con is that Book of the Month only ships to people who are in the USA and active military who are living overseas.

Something that I have enjoyed about Book of the Month compared to my experiences with other subscription boxes is that they make it really easy to skip a month. If you are paying for a book subscription service there are probably going to be times when you are not interested in the book being offered. The way in which you skip with this subscription service is that you go to 'My BOTM' and you can hit the skip button at the bottom of the page. You will be asked to confirm that you want to skip and once it has been confirmed you will not receive a book and your credit will roll over to the next month. The other thing I like about Book of the Month is that you get to pick from five books each month. Most other subscription boxes do not allow you to choose the book. Other subscription boxes feature one book that is kept a secret until the boxes arrive to the subscriber. Being able to pick from five books gives me the opportunity to select a hardcover book that I am more likely to enjoy and that is a lot cheaper than retail price.

I think the greatest thing Book of the Month offers is that they sell hardcover new releases for relatively good deals. I tend to shop around for books and it’s hard to find hardcover books for the price that Book of the Month offers.