How Book of the Month Drawn in Millennial Readers

At the Book of the Month office in Manhattan, Brianna Goodman, the editorial director, perches on a bar stool as she prepares for the latest edition of the Virtual Book Tour podcast. The office has six rows of chairs, mostly occupied by Book of the Month team members and a journalist, all set for the recording session. Goodman shares hosting duties for the podcast with Jerrod MacFarlane, the editorial associate.

Joining them is Kaliane Bradley, a British Cambodian author whose debut novel, “The Ministry of Time,” has just landed on the bestseller list. Even before its retail release in May, the BBC had secured rights to adapt the time-travel romance into a six-hour series, with Alice Birch—known for “Normal People” and “Dead Ringers”—set to direct.

Goodman eagerly introduces the book: “This book has so much to love in it,” she says. “It’s a mix of time travel, of rom-com, of this really interesting exploration of time and history and the ways that language changes over time. It also has my favorite thing that happens in books, which is a dry sense of humor….It’s one of those books where I’m sitting by myself snorting quietly as I’m reading, so thank you.”

The Q&A session, filled with lively questions, covers a range of topics from the origins of Bradley’s novel—initially serialized on a polar exploration enthusiast’s blog during the COVID-19 lockdown—to personal parallels with the narrator’s life (the narrator’s Khmer mother migrated to London during the Cambodian civil war). Discussions also touch on the protagonist’s views on modern technology, revealing that Lieutenant Graham Gore, a historical figure from the ill-fated Arctic expedition of Sir John Franklin, enjoys Spotify but despises smartphones and the TV show “East Enders.”

The session’s energy is palpable and designed to encourage book purchases. Launched in 2022, the Virtual Book Tour extends from the discussions that the BOTM editorial team has about their monthly selections, which usually include five to seven titles.

As the Q&A wraps up, the scene transitions smoothly: chairs are quickly stacked, studio lights are taken down, and staff prepare cocktails inspired by “The Ministry of Time.” These drinks mix sloe gin with lemon juice and club soda, garnished with mint and blue cocktail cherry, reflecting Lieutenant Gore’s discovery of a sloe bush and his Victorian-era sloe gin recipe. Bradley then relaxes in a banquette, ready to sign books for the enthusiastic staff.

“I really only expected five to 15 people to read this book, and the idea that these amazing people have got behind it is really quite extraordinary,” says Bradley, in typical British understatement. “Just seeing the culture here, it blew my mind.”

“No Point of View” and a “Crappy Website”

During a recent appearance on Jimmy Fallon’s “Tonight Show,” Anne Hathaway inquired about how many in the audience had read Robinne Lee’s 2017 novel, “The Idea of You,” which inspired her latest film. The resulting silence quickly went viral, reinforcing the belief that smartphones have contributed to a decline in reading habits among today’s generation. Fallon humorously quipped, “We don’t read,” hinting that Hathaway might have better luck finding literary enthusiasts on Stephen Colbert’s “Late Night.”

“The Idea of You” did not receive the Book of the Month (BOTM) selection, unlike Casey McQuiston’s 2019 LGBTQ romance “Red, White and Royal Blue,” which was chosen by BOTM and later adapted into a successful 2023 film. The book industry remains a substantial global market worth billions, with U.S. sales exceeding $9 billion annually from 700 million books sold. Despite the popularity of audiobooks and e-readers, printed books, especially hardcovers which generate $3.2 billion each year, continue to be the favored format.

Founded in 1926 as a mail-order book club, Book of the Month has been influential in shaping literary tastes, featuring debut works by authors like Ernest Hemingway with “The Sun Also Rises,” J.D. Salinger with “The Catcher in the Rye,” and Nelson DeMille with “By the Rivers of Babylon.” However, the growth of Amazon and big retail chains has notably affected independent bookstores and reduced the influence of book clubs as key promotional channels. By the 1990s, BOTM faced difficulties due to detrimental mergers and acquisitions. By 2012, when John Lippman, a former music publishing executive and Lehman Brothers vice president, bought a majority stake, the club was on the edge of disappearing.

“They had a crappy website, they weren’t good at e-commerce [and] they just weren’t about anything,” says Lippman, who is now BOTM’s chief executive officer. “There was no point of view; they were just drifting.”

The digital revolution fragmented the book industry, and the rise of algorithm-driven e-commerce posed additional challenges for general book clubs. Oprah Winfrey’s book club, launched in 1996, used her celebrity and daily talk show to become a major promotional force, making an Oprah’s Book Club endorsement highly coveted by publishers. In response, Book of the Month Club reintroduced its panel of celebrity authors to compete, but the wide range of selections failed to attract a loyal readership, leading to a drop in subscribers.

“Supporting new authors, helping them break through, that was actually the thing I was most interested in,” Lippman says. “It sounded like fun and that’s what was missing. It was like, ‘Who used to do that in the book business?’ Oh, us, like 90 years ago. Why don’t we just do that thing again and also be good at e-commerce?”

In 2015, John Lippman Book of the Month revamped by dropping ‘club’ from the name and focusing on contemporary fiction. Subscribers now pay $15.99 a month to choose from a selection of five to seven curated hardcover books. Those wanting more options can buy additional titles for $10.99 each. By the end of its first year after the relaunch, BOTM was profitable, and by 2017, it had made $10 million. Today, the company generates over $50 million in annual revenue.

More than 80% of BOTM’s subscribers are Gen-Z and Millennial women. “We didn’t specifically reinvent it for younger women, but that’s who came to us,” he says. “Women read most [of] the fiction in America, and if you’re promoting up-and-coming authors, you tend to attract younger audiences.”

BOTM now boasts over 350,000 monthly subscribers and around 2 million social media followers across platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Despite its success, the company operates with a streamlined team of about 50 employees based in New York.

Brianna Goodman, 31, represents the ideal BOTM subscriber and is pivotal in choosing the monthly book selections, which span genres like thrillers, literary and historical fiction, fantasy, sci-fi, and short stories. Before joining BOTM’s team, Goodman was already a dedicated subscriber. Her rise within the company was swift; she began as an editorial assistant in 2018, shortly after earning her degree in literature and creative writing from Fordham University.

Previously a classically trained ballet dancer, Goodman moved to New York in 2011 to join the Joffrey Ballet School, sharing a small West Village apartment with six other dancers.

“We were all dancers,” she says. “There was a lot of tension.”

While dancing, she juggled night classes at Fordham and a part-time babysitting job to make ends meet. “At a certain point I just couldn’t make the financials work,” she adds. “I also had many other interests. And I just hit a point where my life was so disciplined and so contained in this very narrow way, and I just like wanted it to open up more.”

Book of the Month provided that opportunity. “At the time it was a pretty small company so there was a ton of opportunity,” she says. “I was just excited to learn every single aspect of the editorial team’s work.”

On average, Goodman reads about five books each week and supervises a six-member editorial team that reviews submissions. Despite this, she reads every book BOTM endorses from cover to cover.

“If I’m reading a book, and I can tell that it’s something really special and really different, my heart literally starts racing,” she says, placing a hand over her chest to highlight the feeling.

She currently has around 250 books in her collection, a reduction from 500 due to a recent move. Her schedule is packed with meetings with agents, publishers, and authors, so she carves out time for reading on weekends and early mornings before work. She’s an early riser, usually up by 6 a.m., with books strewn throughout her apartment—on the coffee table and tucked into corners of the living room. When friends visit, they often leave with a book or two. As for the books in her bedroom, she laughs, “They are actually in the bed with me. I sleep on the right side of the bed and books sleep on the left side of the bed. I know I shouldn’t do that. They are hardback books.”

“It’s really important for me to tap into that mindset that I had when I was hired, of being a member and rushing to open the app on the first of the month to see what the new books are. It can be so easy for people who do this job to start to feel like everything feels the same, ‘I’m so overwhelmed that I’m sick of reading.’ But it’s so important for me to never feel that way and remember that this might be the one book that a member reads this month.”

“If I didn’t love books,” she says. “I couldn’t do this job.”