I’ve never understood Book of the Month clubs. But then…I read a lot of books.*
I signed up for a clothes of the month club, basically. AND WHOAH. THEY SEND ME CLOTHES I LIKE AND I DON’T HAVE TO BE OVERWHELMED WITH ALL THE SHOPPING AND MORE OFTEN THAN NOT THEY FIT.
Am I willing to pay a premium for that?
Insert whimper-nod here.
Inspired by my clothes-of-the-month boxes, I’ve gone onto Amazon to look for more clothes. Yay! Clothes!
I have yet to buy clothes for myself from Amazon. Too much stuff, no way to tell if it fits, NO accounting for tastes or quality, oh ye gods too much stuff. Meh.
I’m not sure what that means for me, personally, but I think there’s room out there for a similar service that does indie books. Indie book boxes, catered to your individual tastes. Not “everyone read the same book this month” club. But “I read some Le Carré the other day and liked it. What have you got like that in indie?” club. Say one print or e-book a month, selected by readers in the genre, with the option to hit a button and have the rest of the series sent to you automatically–all at once, when they come out, or one a month, whatever.
Charge the authors a nominal reading fee and Bob’s your uncle.
BUY MY CRAP: I have a new short story out, “The Foundations.” When your basement is haunted in your brand-new house AND THE CONSTRUCTION COMPANY WON’T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT. Short horror story, 99c. Click here.
*I used to be part of the Science Fiction Book Club, back when I lived in a small town with an underfunded library and an hour’s drive to the nearest bookstore (and was like, “OMG! Only an hour!” because we’d moved from somewhere even more remote). This was before Amazon. I still have my collected Amber series hardbacks.