

We're excited to share with you the top four things we love about our new look.ġ. For a more detailed examination, read a little more on BOTM and their deleted comments or their company response at the time.If you've stopped by the site lately, you may have noticed a few changes. They also silenced and blocked Traci Thomas, host of The Stacks Podcast, to whom they later apologized. If you want to read more about Mexican and Mexican American experiences, you can read some alternatives like The Devil’s Highway or Boy Kings of Texas instead.īOTM also received pushback after deleting comments that were critical of the company’s response to Black Lives Matter on their Instagram. However, you cannot buy BOTM branded copies from the company as they have sold out of them. Author Myriam Gurba called it “ trauma porn.” For a more detailed explanation you can read about the controversy over American Dirt.

Cummins was widely criticized for having written about communities and experiences she does not share, to put it mildly. In February 2020, BOTM featured Jeanine Cummins’s American Dirt as one of its book selections. While the BOTM rebranding has been successful, the company’s recent moves have not been without controversy. Groups can select a book and have copies shipped to individual members or to one address, depending on the needs of the group. In addition, BOTM has introduced a new Book Club feature. This status means that a subscriber receives some rewards for being a subscriber. For a little more detail on how BOTM weighs title selection input, you can read how they chooses their selections on their blog.Īs they continue to grow, BOTM also offers members “BFF” status once their membership is a year old. After BOTM removed the judges’ essays feature, they found that members requested a return to this practice. Beginning in 2015, BOTM asked judges to write essays to accompany their title selections, a practice that was temporarily removed when BOTM made some changes in 2018.

It has judges, a ‘readers committee’ of BOTM members, and an editorial team. To select titles, BOTM uses input from several sources. In terms of social media, Book of the Month has 1.2 million followers on Instagram and over 67,000 on TikTok. More recent estimates have listed 250,000 subscribers (although it can be expected that these numbers will fluctuate). As of 2017, Lippmann reported BOTM had 100,000 active members. It rebranded and relaunched in late 2015 as the Book of the Month (BOTM) many know today, and the efforts seem to have been successful. In order to do this, the company shut down completely for a time. By signing up you agree to our terms of use Thank you for signing up! Keep an eye on your inbox. Its first offerings even featured an openly queer author, Sylvia Townsend Warner. However, it eventually allowed members to decline a current selection and choose from a list of alternatives. It started with a subscription model that required members to purchase a certain number of books a year. It convened a panel of judges to make book selections to send out to all its members. Originally, the company was called Book of the Month Club (BOMC). If the offerings do not entice them in a particular month, they can skip that time. Their choice(s) then ship directly to their address. Members can also choose ‘add-on’ books (at $9.99 per title). Members pay $15.99 monthly (after a $9.99 introductory month) to choose a hardback from among five to seven selections. Started in 1926 by an advertising copywriter, it is the longest running book subscription service in the U.S. service that has seen a resurgence recently. When you think of book subscriptions, you may think of Book of the Month, a U.S.
