Book of the Month Club survived to its 2026 centenary by selling curation, not books. After a late-2015 relaunch it dropped the old negative-option mail-order model, offered a small monthly shortlist and let members choose or skip. It passed 100,000 members within two years and more than 400,000 by 2025, with revenue estimated at about $50 million in 2024.
Key takeaways
- People pay for a trusted filter when choice is overwhelming. Books are available everywhere; taste isn't.
- The relaunch kept the 1926 promise (a panel picks for you) and dropped the 'ship unless you say no' mechanics.
- Membership grew from 100,000+ (about 2017) to 400,000+ (2025), with revenue estimated at $10 million in 2017 and $50 million in 2024.
- Member choice and easy skipping keep you on the right side of subscription-trap laws.
It's 1926. Harry Scherman has a problem most of us would love to have: people want books, but they don't know which ones to buy.
So he hires a panel of respected critics, picks one book a month, and mails it to members. Four thousand people sign up in the first year. Sixty thousand by the end of the second.
That's the story I opened The Subscription Playbook with. Book of the Month Club (BOMC) was the first major subscription success, and nearly every subscription box you see today is a grandchild of it.
Here's the twist. A hundred years later, in 2026, the club is still going. And it isn't surviving on nostalgia. It's growing.
The numbers: from 4,000 members to 400,000
| When | What happened | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1926 | Harry Scherman founds BOMC | The Subscription Playbook |
| First year | 4,000 subscribers; 60,000 by the end of year two | The Subscription Playbook |
| Mid-1950s | More than 800,000 members | The Subscription Playbook |
| 1977 | Sold for $63 million | The Subscription Playbook |
| Late 2015 | Relaunched around its 90th year | Wikipedia |
| About 2017 | More than 100,000 members, mostly millennial and Gen Z women | Wikipedia |
| 2017 | Revenue estimated at about $10 million | WWD (industry estimate) |
| 2024 | Revenue estimated at about $50 million | WWD (industry estimate) |
| 2025 | More than 400,000 members | Fast Company |
| 2025 | About $14.99 a book, or $13.99 on a 12-credit annual plan | Taste of Home |
| 2026 | Centenary year; owned by Pride Tree Holdings | Wikipedia |
The revenue figures are third-party estimates, not company disclosures. But the direction is clear: roughly five times the revenue in seven years.
What did Book of the Month change?
It kept the promise and threw out the machinery.
The promise was always "trusted people pick for you." That's what Scherman sold in 1926. The machinery was the part that aged badly: catalogs, reply cards, and the "negative option." If you didn't send the card back, the Main Selection turned up with a bill.
The relaunched club works differently:
- A short list, not a catalog. Each month members see a handful of picks from the editorial team.
- Members choose. You pick the one you want. Nothing ships by default.
- Skipping is normal. Don't like this month's list? Skip it.
- Credits on an annual plan. Pay upfront for 12 credits and each book costs less.
- Community on top. Its Instagram following grew past 1.5 million, and the pick of the month becomes something members talk about.
Notice what's missing. There's no attempt to compete with Amazon on price or range (a fight nobody wins). You can buy any of these books anywhere. Members aren't paying for the book.
They're paying for the filter.
Why did curation survive when the old model didn't?
Because choice got worse, not better.
In 1926 the problem was finding good books. In 2026 the problem is that there are millions of them, and every algorithm is shouting at you. A small, human shortlist is more valuable now than it was a century ago.
In the book's MOATS framework, this is an Audience moat. The value isn't in the product (anyone can ship a hardcover). It's in a community that trusts the editors' taste and enjoys reading the same thing at the same time. That's much harder to copy than a warehouse.
It also fits the subscription box model the way it should work. In Chapter 2 I said boxes suit two kinds of product: things that appeal to collectors, and product lines with "so many options that consumers want a little help curating." BOMC is the second kind, done well.
And it fixes the churn trap that killed its cousin. Letting members choose and skip costs a little revenue in a slow month. It buys trust, and trust keeps people subscribed for years.
Why I still tell this story
I open the book with BOMC because it proves subscriptions aren't a software fad. They're a hundred years old. What the relaunch adds is the lesson I wish more box companies learned: the parts of your model that depend on customers not paying attention are the parts that will eventually break.
What the book said in 2022
In 2022 I wrote that BOMC was "still running today" but "isn't too transparent with its current membership numbers," and that it had an Instagram page with more than one million followers.
I used it as the origin story: a trusted panel, a monthly pick, delivery by mail, and a subscription model that "was unlike anything that any regular bookshop of the time could offer." For a while, the subscription itself was the moat.
What's happened since
More than I expected.
Fast Company reported more than 400,000 members in 2025, roughly four times the 100,000 the club passed after its relaunch. Estimated revenue went from about $10 million (2017) to about $50 million (2024). The club celebrates its centenary in 2026 under private ownership.
Meanwhile its old imitator, the Columbia Record Club, did the opposite. It leaned on default shipments and customers forgetting to say no. In September 2026, Quartz reported, it stopped taking new orders after 71 years. I've written up how Columbia House finally ran out of road, and the two stories read best side by side.
Same starting idea. One sold taste. One sold inertia. Only one made it to 100.
Is a curated subscription right for you?
Answer eight questions in the free Subscription Model Selector and see whether a subscription box, member benefits or another model fits your business.
What you can steal from Book of the Month
You don't need a publishing deal to copy this. You need taste in something your customers find confusing.
- Sell the filter, not the product. "This month's three picks" works for wine, plants, coffee beans, tools, kids' activities, even software. If your customers say "I never know which one to get," you have a curation business hiding inside your shop.
- Let members choose, or skip. Opt-in choice beats auto-shipping. It also keeps you clear of the kind of design Australia's subscription trap laws target from 1 July 2027.
- Offer credits on an annual plan. BOMC's 12-credit plan lowers the per-item price and brings cash in upfront. Use the annual discount calculator to set a discount you can afford.
- Build the community around the pick. An Instagram post, a members' group, a monthly "what did you think?" email. The conversation is part of what people pay for.
- Track skips, not just cancellations. A rising skip rate is your early warning that the picks are missing the mark.
Steal this: the three-pick test
Before you build anything, send your best 50 customers a "three picks this month" email with a buy link for each. If a good share of them buy one, you have demand for curation. If nobody clicks, your customers want range or price, not a filter.
A curated subscription is one of the cheapest subscriptions to start. If you're testing the idea on a tight budget, my guide to growing on a shoestring covers how to find your first members without paid ads.
Churn Risk ChecklistTwenty questions that reveal where customers will leave.Open the free tool →Your next step
Ask yourself one question: what do my customers find overwhelming to choose?
If you have an answer, you have a Book of the Month in waiting. Write down your first three picks this week, and send them to your list before you build a single checkout page.
If you want to compare BOMC with the other seven ways to structure a subscription, start with the eight subscription models, or browse more subscription case studies.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Book of the Month cost?
In 2025, according to a Taste of Home review, membership cost about $14.99 per book, or $13.99 per book on a 12-credit annual plan. Members choose one book from a short monthly list, can add extra books, and can skip a month. Prices change, so check the company's own site before quoting them.
Who owns Book of the Month Club today?
Book of the Month is privately owned by Pride Tree Holdings. The original club was founded by Harry Scherman in 1926 and, according to The Subscription Playbook, was sold for $63 million in 1977 after his death. The modern version relaunched in late 2015, around its 90th year.
Is a book subscription box still a good business in 2026?
It can be, if you sell curation rather than the product. Readers can buy any book online, often cheaper. What they can't easily buy is a trusted shortlist and a community talking about the same pick. If you can't offer real taste and a reason to belong, a book box is just a slower, pricier bookshop.
What is negative option billing?
Negative option billing means the customer is charged or shipped a product unless they actively say no. The old book and record clubs used it: miss the reply card and the Main Selection arrived with a bill. Regulators in the US, UK and Australia now restrict this kind of design, so modern clubs ask members to choose.
How many members does Book of the Month have?
Fast Company reported more than 400,000 members in 2025. The relaunched club had passed 100,000 members within two years of its late-2015 relaunch, mostly millennial and Gen Z women. The company doesn't publish regular membership figures, so treat any newer number you see as an estimate.
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Robert Coorey, MBA
Robert is the author of The Subscription Playbook and Feed a Starving Crowd and a Director at BPAG Accountants in Sydney. More about Robert.
Sources
- Wikipedia, Book of the Month (accessed Oct 2026)
- Fast Company, How Book of the Month Club survived 100 years of the publishing industry (2025)
- WWD, Book of the Month revenue estimates (2024)
- Taste of Home, Book of the Month Club review and pricing (May 2025)
Facts and prices checked 27 October 2026. Spotted something out of date? Tell us.