Do subscription boxes have a long tail?—The sub box model surges at launch

Book subscriptions are nothing new, but specialised book subscription boxes have grown more popular in the past few years with barely a fortnight elapsing without one or more of them shooting into the Official Top 50 according to Neilsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market (TCM).

For the uninitiated, customers sign up to book subscriptions—often with independent bookshops—and receive a surprise book each month based on their reading tastes. The subscription boxes that have taken over the charts in recent years are a step further on—often signed exclusive editions of new hardbacks, usually in the fantasy or young adult categories, accompanied with themed add-ons, such as bookmarks, teas or candles.

Many companies now provide this service, but the two making the biggest impact on the weekly charts are from Illumicrate and FairyLoot—established in 2015 and 2016 respectively—with both offering three or four different subscription boxes per month. As well as a subscription, both companies also sell their exclusive editions (if stock is available) without further commitment.

Since January 2023 up to October 2024, Illumicrate and FairyLoot have featured 91 different titles in their boxes, and while some of them have crossed over with other subscriptions, there has not been any duplication between the two main competitors.

Subscription-box sales are easy to spot within the data: they often come through with an a.s.p. that matches or is very close to the r.r.p. and sales are largely concentrated within one week. We have TCM data for 70 subscription titles—some exclusive formats don’t report into the TCM—and on average 72.9% of these titles’ lifetime total sales have come in just a single week.

There are interesting exceptions. Perhaps the most successful subscription box title is Rebecca Ross’ Divine Rivals, which has lifetime sales of 35,871 copies since publication in May 2023. Around 11,000 units came in one week on publication, then volume dropped 99% to 105 copies the following week. However, sales picked up again in the latter part of 2023 leading to 25,000 additional units and total sales of £508,628.

There are different measures of success, though. The biggest individual week for a subscription box title came in December 2023 when Saara El-Arifi’s Faebound shifted 14,503 copies—64% of its lifetime sales. El-Arifi is also a success when it comes to paperback sales, with the cheaper format of Faebound bringing in 24,000 copies—6% more units than in hardback.

This really bucks the trend, though, being one of only five subscription box books to increase sales in the second format; on average paperback sales are 73% down compared against the hardback. Though one notable exception to this is Godkiller by Hannah Kaner, the paperback edition of which has so far sold 57,840 units—176% more than the hardback did in 2023. With only 36% of Kaner’s hardback sales coming in its peak week, though, it’s likely this was always going to do well in the wider market.

The most successful follow-ups to subscription-box books are Kaner’s Sunbringer and Ross’ Ruthless Vows—published at the beginning of 2024. Both books were available as exclusive editions to match their predecessors via Illumicrate and FairyLoot, but despite notching up sales of 14,479 and 24,433 units respectively, both are around 30% down when compared to book one.

Using the 17 titles that have had a second book published since their appearance in a subscription box, the sequels experience a decline of 68.6% to an average lifetime sales figure of 4,117—although this halves to 2,072 once the two biggest titles are removed from the data—perhaps proving that huge sales don’t always translate to the wider market.