As deluxe edition sales have flourished for publishers and authors alike (the latest Rebecca Yarros book sold more deluxe than standard editions during launch), so have subscription boxes that carry exclusives. A wide range of services now caters to readers who are looking for an experience that goes beyond just having the book and includes exclusive merchandise that can’t be acquired elsewhere. One example is UK-based FairyLoot, started by two authors. In 2024, Publishers Weekly reported the service was shipping out tens of thousands of books every month, with sales increasing tenfold from 2020 to 2024. In 2025, FairyLoot announced a partnership with Penguin Random House UK on a new imprint.
Competitors abound—there’s also OwlCrate and Illumicrate, both around for the last decade—and increasingly I’m seeing offerings launched by authors. Sometimes the focus is on their own work; other times the box curates selections from other authors. The latest offering comes from Bridgerton author Julia Quinn, who is using Kickstarter to fund her effort.
While there’s nothing new about book subscriptions—Book of the Month Club has been around nearly 100 years—a subscription box today is a different animal, with a focus on community, exclusivity, and the unboxing experience. (Having a BOMC edition wasn’t anything to brag about when I entered publishing; they were cheaply made.) The type of person who subscribes to FairyLoot tends to be younger and on social media, likely to value exclusivity and experience FOMO (fear of missing out).
Given how some indie authors are doing extraordinarily well selling direct (as I reported last year), I decided to take a closer look at subscription boxes to see who should be considering them. Should authors meet a certain threshold of sales first? What quantities are required? How do you put together a successful box? I talked to two experts in the space: Dana Ross, CEO of The INKfluence, a global manufacturing agency that works with authors; and author Willow Winters, who started selling subscription boxes more than six years ago.
Subscription boxes can play a marketing role and/or a revenue-generating role, according to Ross. She’s seen pre-launch boxes (similar in content to subscription boxes) used in small quantities to support advance review copies or with street teams to support a book launch—a good unboxing experience with appealing swag will get shared on social media. But ideally, Ross likes to see authors use boxes for income, and they can pay higher margins than individual book sales. She says a 50 percent markup is common. Subscription boxes can also give authors more products to sell without writing more books, which makes sense for authors already running their own storefront and selling direct. For a subscription box to be worth the time and cost, Ross suggests a minimum of 100 boxes, which can also be a manufacturing minimum. Even if authors don’t use or sell all boxes initially, they can always sell them later in interesting ways. (More on that in a minute.)
Ross says, “If you have an audience that is devouring your books and your series, and you’re looking at how to expand, this is IP expansion. … The more SKUs [unique products] you have, the better it is, so how do you take what you have and multiply those SKUs?” Ross says you can use Kickstarter, like Quinn, to support the subscription box division of your business. Consider focusing on your best-performing series, your best stand-alone book or “gateway drug” book, or any data you have that shows what your audience will be most excited about.
Willow Winters offers two types of boxes: a subscription box and a mystery box. The subscription boxes are seasonal offerings (spring, summer, fall, winter) available in different sizes (medium, large, extra large), priced from $49 to $199 per box. As of today, these boxes focus on special editions that aren’t available elsewhere, along with merchandise; she currently produces 1,000 of each seasonal box. The mystery boxes are one-time purchases that do not require a subscription; they were initially created by Winters to sell leftover merchandise and older special editions. Mystery box sales now outpace her subscription box sales by a factor of nearly five. She says they’re for people who don’t want to wait, since there are “doors” in front of every special edition. (E.g., to get a Winters special edition, you have to buy in person, you have to be part of her Patreon, and/or you have to buy the subscription box, which is seasonal.)
While TikTok is often touted by indie authors these days as a key marketing and promotion channel, Winters says that currently Facebook and Instagram are her number-one converters for direct sales at her storefront, plus she sends boxes for free to influencers. She does not sell through TikTok Shop, although she says that approach seems to work great for authors who have their work available in Kindle Unlimited. She does not participate in KU except for titles she co-authors and publishes via Montlake.
The key to a successful box is the experience. It’s not about throwing a bunch of random stuff into a box. Each element should make sense as part of an unboxing experience that delights readers. Ross says, “Everyone always asks me, ‘What’s the best thing to put in the box?’ I ask, ‘What excites you the most?’ Whatever you decide, it should be branded to align with the core content in the box.” For example, if the box includes a new series installment, the merch might focus on series characters. Or if readers know you as being a lover of socks, you might include socks branded with the series, characters, etc.
Winters curates her boxes based on being a reader herself. She includes what she calls “grabby items”—splurges that make a reader happy—alongside useful, everyday items, like mugs. (She estimates she’s manufactured at least 50 unique mugs over the years.)
Budgeting is critical, and authors sometimes overlook costs like packaging—not least the box itself. If the box is a high-quality, decorated box (e.g., with special treatment, like foil stamping), the box may cost several dollars per unit. The weight of the box also has to be taken into consideration, as it adds to the shipping cost. Ross says, “When I see people learn a lesson, it’s normally that they haven’t budgeted correctly.” She recommends working backward from how much you’re able to spend per box and focusing on the perceived value of each item rather than the quantity of items. Recently, Ross added to the INKfluence website typical pricing for the top products she’s asked for, with minimum order quantities. (Browse.) Sometimes optional add-on costs are mentioned, like header cards for an air freshener. Ross said it’s important to think about how you package each bit of merchandise to increase the overall perceived value. “You could put your [collector] coin in a little clear pouch that’s 10 cents, which makes it have a bit more of a robust packaging feel. You could put it on a stand. … You can make a pin more valuable by putting it on a card.” She also recommends choosing items that automatically increase the perceived value. For example, a pair of custom socks might carry a unit cost between $3 and $6 but have a typical retail value of $25 to $30.
Production timeline and other logistics: This will vary based on the complexity of the project, but a lot of merchandise that Ross deals in can be produced overseas and shipped to the author in a few weeks. Elaborate box designs might take a few months to manufacture, as do deluxe editions.
To support the sales of her subscription boxes, mystery boxes, and standard book sales, Winters employs three full-time and three part-time staff in a 1,200-square foot warehouse dedicated to packing and shipping. Due to the complexity of shipping and custom orders, she employs two dedicated customer service representatives to handle emails and social media comments. She offers a warning to others: Growth is expensive. She says, “It’s okay to go slow. It’s not like an all-you-can-eat buffet that’s closing at nine. It’s still gonna be there. I’ve shut down my shop for an entire month before to catch up on orders, restructure, and move into the warehouse. And I remember so many people were like, ‘Oh my god, you’re losing so much money.’ And I was like, ‘I would probably burn out if I didn’t do this.’”
Winters also touched on the importance of cash flow. She says, “I try not to expand too rapidly because when I was expanding rapidly, there was no money, there was no cash flow. I wasn’t actually profiting, and it was just more and more and more.” Together, her mystery and subscription box sales now represent about 20 percent of her overall revenue.
Bottom line: Ross says boxes are suitable for any author who wants to sell an experience rather than just a product, with beneficial and ongoing marketing effects. For that reason, Winters doesn’t like to prescribe any particular sales threshold for an author to get started. “If it’s adding to your marketing abilities, it’s adding to your variation of your IP. IP variation is very crucial for success and stability,” she says. “It’s harnessing that community and that closeness, which is really important for longevity. I think if you can do one, do one. If you can do a dozen, do a dozen. And if you can do 1,000, you know, make sure you have the whole month and a whole team to get those suckers out.”
Readers respond
Author Benjamin Sobieck writes, “I read with interest the piece about subscription boxes. For a short time, my coffee biz, Writer’s Block Coffee, supplied coffee beans for Scribbler subscription boxes (founded in 2018). Scribbler shut down last year. From my POV as a supplier (I can only speak for myself), there is a high burnout factor on the production side. At some point, you run out of interesting items to put into the box, and you physically run out of room to store unsold boxes at any reasonable economy. Unless you’re operating at a massive scale, the numbers and the items are very difficult to make work in the long run. You also have to convince suppliers to take losses.”
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
