Book Subscription Boxes

Deciding what book box to subscribe to is a surprisingly daunting task.  I seriously thought it would be easy. I didn’t realize how many different subscriptions existed.  Originally I was going to pick one and then just write an “unveiling” post every month when it arrived.  However, once I realized how hard this is going to be, I decided to write a post detailing how I picked one.  So here it goes:

Note: None of the links are affiliate links and the prices are for one box, without any discounts.

Step 1: Finding as many subscriptions as possible

First things first, I googled book subscription boxes and opened every single one I could find. (I ended up getting a lot of duplicates)

I opened so many tabs they turned into triangles.  I didn’t even know they did that!

Step 2: Quick Rejects

Next I did a super quick sweep through, removing duplicates and closing any that I knew I wouldn’t like.

Here are the ones I closed with a brief explanation as to why:

Quarterly – I am too inpatient!  I  want a monthly subscription not a quarterly subscription.

• Quarterlane – $95
• Quarterly Literary Box – $50
• Book Bath Box – $45
• The Wordy Traveler – $109

Not my cup of tea – Literally they send you tea or coffee related items and I don’t like tea or coffee.

• Muse Monthly – $30
• Novel Tea Club – $30
• Cozy Reader Club – $65
• Tea and Book Club – $15
• Blue Spider’s Attic – $14
• Coffee and a Classic – $38

Children’s Books – I was surprised to find I had opened so many kids books boxes.  I just opened everything and really wasn’t paying attention.

• Reading Bug Box – $28
• Bookroo -$18
• My First Reading Club – $10
• MyEduCrate – $40
• Lillypost – $26
• The Story Box – $20
• Sol Book Box – $30
• The Little Reading Club – $30
• Little Fun Club – $29
• BookBoks – $16

No longer exists or not accepting new subscribers – A lot of the lists I was pulling from were old so some don’t exist anymore.

• Blind Box Comics
• LitKit
• Storyed
• Paper Street Books and Comics
• Bethany Beach Books
• Wonder Girl Box
• BookUBox
• The Bookworm Box
• Bibliophile Crate
• The Book Drop
• Fairy Loot

Other

• The Book(ish) Box – Does not contain a book – $30
• Inspired Book Club – Inspirational Literature – $35
• The Nocturnal Reader’s Box – Horror (not every month but often enough) – $35
• ComicBoxer – Comics – $20
• Chocolate and book – I’m too picky and don’t like trying new food/candy – $19
• Call Number – Black Literature – $35
• Zine-o-matic – Magazines – $19
• KitabCrate – Islamic Literature – $13
• Book Loot – No Sept Box and Oct is Horror – $33
• Magic Chest – From Germany – $35

Step 3: Eliminating Genres

You would think that after eliminating 41 boxes I would be getting close.  Nope! I still have 21 left.  My browser is looking a lot better though:

I still need to do some mass eliminations, and genre seems as good a way as any.

Romance – Romance is the first genre to go.  I love romance novels but they are a dime a dozen.  I own so many I haven’t read, and I can get them super cheap everywhere.

• Reveal Book Box – $25
• Send Me Swooning – $37
• My Guilty Pleasures Book Crate – $30
• Bubbles & Books – $24

Indie – According to Wikipedia: The National Literary Awards defines independent or “indie” literature as “books published outside mainstream publishing.” The logical part of me knows that these books can be every bit as great as mainstream books, but the illogical part of me thinks there will be a lot of weird books in these boxes:

• Indiespensable by Powell’s – $45
• Indie Book Connect – $20

Boring – Yes, I know “Boring” isn’t a genre, but after looking more closely at these boxes I don’t think I will like the books

• Hello Book Lover – “curated for the modern woman” – $28
• Boxwalla – “potential Nobel Laureates as well as classics” – $30

Step 4: Cost

I’m not made out of money.  The box can’t be that expensive.  $37 a month is about as high as I can go.  It doesn’t matter how great the box if I can’t afford it.

• My Book Box – $40
• Beautiful Madness Books – $47
• Once Upon a Book Club – $35 with $9 shipping
  • I want to note that this was one of the ones I was leaning toward before I saw the price 😦
• LitJoy Crate – $30 with $9 shipping

Step 5: In Depth Eliminations

Down to the top 9!  I actually have to start making decisions here.

• Fresh Fiction Box – $26
  • Contains 3-5 new release print books and 2-4 eBooks
  • That is a LOT of books.  It would take me the entire month to read them all and that wouldn’t leave me any time to read books of my choosing.  I just don’t need that many books.
• Read Dog – $32
  • They select over a hundred books that fit their theme and then send you the one they think you will like best along with some other trinkets
  • I really like the idea of them customizing a book for me, but I don’t know how well that will work (reviews aren’t promising)
  • Looking at the past boxes the trinkets are not that great.  Puzzle Pieces, Bubbles, Tea, Seashells, etc.
• Book of the Month – $16
  • They give you 5 books to choose from in your given genre. You pick one book then can add up to two more for $9.99 each
  • I want a surprise book, if I have to pick my own book I might as well do it from scratch instead of being limited to their five.
• Parnassus Next – $?
  • They only charge you the cost of the book plus $6 shipping every month.
  • Also all the books are YA first edition signed hardcover books.
  • I like that they charge you only the cost of the book, but then you aren’t really getting a discount, and other than it being signed there is really nothing special about it.
• BookCase.Club – $10
  • I really like the price of this one.  You get two books for $10 (plus $5 shipping)
  • They have a good selection of genres too. (I would pick the sci-fi/fantasy one)
  • This would be my #1 pick except I want “goodies” with my box, not just books.
• Paige Habit – $30
  • This one has a YA box that looks pretty cool. It comes with a variety of goodies.
  • Books contain annotations from the author.  It pretty much has sticky notes throughout the book with notes from the author.
  • I really like the author annotations idea, but the rest of the box just doesn’t seem up to par with my top 3, though it was a close call.

Step 6: Top 3!!!

Yay! We are almost there!!! Here are my top 3:

Urg!! I am so bad at making decisions.  This is soooo hard.  OwlCrate is the most well known.  OwlCrate and Lit Cube come with more stuff and tend towards fantasy.  Uppercase has a sweet interactive guide thing that sounds cool, but their book choices are iffy.   Lit Cube’s Sept theme sounds awful and OwlCrate’s sounds awesome. Uppercase doesn’t even have a theme.  No box is perfect but they are all so cool!

Which one would you choose? (don’t limit yourself to my top 3)  Are you already subscribed to a book Box? Do you love it? Did anyone even get this far in my post before losing interest? Let me know in the comments!

Now for my selection.  Drum Roll Please:

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!!!!!Lit Cube!!!!!

I don’t really have any solid reasons why I picked Lit Cube over the others.  Its mostly just a gut feeling. If I don’t like it I can always change to another! Keep an eye out next month for the box reveal and review! I’m so excited!