Featherproof Starts Subscription-Based Press

ote from the editor: this post has been revised.

I just stumbled on this article at Publisher’s Weekly about a new press at Featherproof called Paper Egg Books. Basically, you pay the press $20.00 upfront as a subscription fee (renewed every year unless you tell them otherwise, much like the CTA) and they mail you a book every six months.

At first I thought this might be a decent idea, but open further inspection, most of the books published by Featherproof can be purchased for about ten dollars anyway, so you’re not really saving any money by subscribing. You’re also not getting to pick out books that you might like. You also don’t know exactly when you’ll be receiving your books from Paper Egg. All in all, I have to ask what the point of this press is, because I can’t actually think of a way in which this is better than just buying books straight from Featherpress. I suppose you get free shipping, and you don’t have to spend time picking out books, though the drawback of that is that you’ll never know if you like what you’ll be getting. I can’t say that I’d be willing to pay $20 a year for this service.

In any case, as an added incentive to subscribe, Paper Egg is providing a free copy of AM/PM by Amelia Gray to the first 250 subscribers. Are you planning on giving this a shot, and if so, why?