Book of the Month Club

The Book of the Month Club (founded 1926) is a United States subscription-based e-commerce service that offers a selection of five new hardcover books each month to its members. Books are selected and endorsed by a panel of judges, and members choose which book they would like to receive, similar to how the club originally operated when it began in 1926. Members can also discuss the books with fellow members in an online forum.

In late 2015, in concert with the club’s 90th year, the club announced a major relaunch in its current iteration. In the first year since relaunch, the community has grown rapidly to include over 100,000 Instagram followers and over 100,000 Facebook followers. Members regularly post photos of themselves – or their pets – with their purchases. The club has also worked with a series of celebrity Guest Judges who bring broader awareness to new titles, and continues producing its own versions of books that feature special endpapers and casings. In 2016, the club launched a Book of the Year award.

The club has a tradition of focusing on debut and emerging writers, and is known for having helped launch the careers of some of the most acclaimed authors in American literary history. In 1926 (its first year in operation), the Club featured Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. In 1936 (its tenth year), the Club selected Gone with the Wind by unknown author Margaret Mitchell. Today, the book remains the second favorite of American readers (after the Bible). Mitchell wrote: “I wanted to thank [Book of the Month] from the bottom of my heart for selecting my book. It was quite the most exciting and unexpected thing that ever happened to me.” In 1951 (its 25th year), the club distributed its 100 millionth book and selected J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, which becomes both the most-censored and the most-taught book in America. In 1978, the Club selected By the Rivers of Babylon, the first book by Nelson DeMille, who later wrote: “I will be forever grateful to Book of the Month for ensuring that my first book, By the Rivers of Babylon, was not my last. When the Club selected Babylon in 1978, it reached hundreds of thousands of additional readers and became an instant best-seller.”

Harry Scherman was a copywriter for the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency in 1916 when he set out to create the "Little Leather Library". With his partners Max Sackheim, and Charles and Albert Boni, Scherman began a mail order service that offered "30 Great Books For $2.98" (miniature reprints "bound in limp Redcroft") and sold 40,000,000 copies in its first five years. Sackheim and Scherman then founded their own ad agency devoted entirely to marketing books.

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