How the Book of the Month Resonates with Millennial Readers

Brianna Goodman, the editorial director at Book of the Month, occupies a bar stool in their Manhattan office. An arrangement of six rows of chairs hosts a live audience—mostly employees of the Book of the Month club and a single reporter—for the taping of Virtual Book Tour, a monthly podcast that Goodman cohosts with editorial associate Jerrod MacFarlane, which showcases authors.

Kaliane Bradley, the British Cambodian author whose first novel “The Ministry of Time” has secured a spot on the bestseller list, sits between them. The BBC acquired the rights to this time-travel romance even before its bookstore release in May, with Alice Birch, known for “Normal People” and “Dead Ringers,” on board to transform it into a six-hour series.

“This book has so much to love in it,” Goodman enthuses as she introduces it. “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 questions from the audience ranged from the genesis of Bradley’s book, which started as a blog for fans of polar exploration during the isolating days of the COVID-19 lockdown, to the autobiographical echoes in the narrators’ lives—Bradley’s mother is Khmer and relocated to London during the Cambodian civil war. Discussions also explored the protagonist’s perspective on contemporary technologies, revealing that the real Lieutenant Graham Gore, who vanished with Sir John Franklin’s crew in the Arctic, enjoys Spotify but loathes smartphones and “East Enders.”

The Q&A session is electrifying, and designed to persuade listeners to purchase the book. However, Virtual Book Tour, which debuted in 2022, naturally evolved from the internal discussions of the BOTM editorial team as they decided on the five to seven books to feature as official Book of the Month picks.

As the Q&A session concludes, the chairs are quickly cleared away, the studio lighting is taken down, and employees come forward offering cocktails inspired by “Ministry of Time”—mixtures of sloe gin, lemon juice, and club soda, adorned with a mint sprig and a blue cocktail cherry. In the narrative, Lt. Gore discovers a prunus spinosa bush and uses its berries to create sloe gin, a concoction that gained popularity during the Victorian era. Meanwhile, Bradley settles into a banquette to autograph books for the enthusiastic staff.

Bradley, in a characteristic display of British restraint, expresses her surprise: “I had modest expectations, thinking only about five to 15 people might read my book. The fact that it has garnered such amazing support is quite astonishing. The culture I’ve witnessed here has blown me away.”

Poorly Designed Website and No Clear Vision

When Anne Hathaway questioned the audience on “The Tonight Show” with Jimmy Fallon about who had read Robinne Lee’s 2017 novel “The Idea of You,” the basis for her recent blockbuster movie, the ensuing silence became an instant viral sensation. This moment highlighted the widespread belief that smartphones have cultivated a generation incapable of prolonged attention to reading. Fallon humorously responded, “We don’t read,” and suggested that if Hathaway was seeking an audience of readers, she might find better luck on Stephen Colbert’s “Late Night.”

While “The Idea of You” did not make it as a Book of the Month pick, Casey McQuiston’s gay romance from 2019, “Red, White and Royal Blue,” did—and it later became a successful film in 2023. Industry statistics reveal that the publishing sector is still thriving globally, amassing billions annually, with the U.S. market alone bringing in more than $9 billion from the sale of 700 million units. Statista’s data also shows that, amidst the growing popularity of audiobooks and eBooks, print continues to be the preferred format, particularly hardbacks, which account for $3.2 billion of total yearly sales.

Since its inception in 1926 as a mail-order book club and influential literary selector, Book of the Month has been a significant player in the publishing field. It featured debut novels from celebrated authors like Ernest Hemingway with “The Sun Also Rises,” J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye,” and Nelson DeMille’s “By the Rivers of Babylon” as some of its notable monthly picks. However, the rise of Amazon and large discount retailers severely impacted independent bookstores and diminished the role of book clubs as key promotional vehicles for new titles. By the 1990s, the Book of the Month Club experienced a series of harmful mergers and acquisitions. By 2012, when John Lippman, a former music publishing executive and vice president at Lehman Brothers, acquired a majority stake, the club was struggling significantly.

“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 rise of digital technology fragmented the book market, with the crowded promotional space and growth of algorithm-based e-commerce presenting new challenges for traditional book clubs. Oprah Winfrey’s launch of her book club in 1996, bolstered by her celebrity status and daily talk show, set a new benchmark in book promotion. For publishers, an endorsement from Oprah’s Book Club was the gold standard. Trying to adapt, the Book of the Month Club brought back its panel of celebrity novelists; however, its wide-ranging selections failed to attract a committed readership, resulting in dwindling subscriber numbers.

“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 rebranded, removing “club” from its name and shifting its focus to primarily new fiction. Subscribers pay a monthly fee of $15.99 and select from five to seven hardcover books, with the option to purchase additional books for $10.99 each. By the following year, BOTM had returned to profitability, and by the close of 2017, its revenues had reached $10 million. Currently, the company generates over $50 million in annual revenues, as reported by industry insiders.

Lippman reports that over 80 percent 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 boasts over 350,000 monthly subscribers and maintains a social media presence with around 2 million followers on platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Despite its size, the company operates efficiently with approximately 50 employees based in New York.

At 31 years old, Goodman epitomizes the typical BOTM subscriber and holds the decisive role in selecting the organization’s monthly book lineup, which includes a diverse range of genres such as thrillers, literary fiction, historical novels, fantasy, sci-fi, and short stories. Her journey with Book of the Month began as a subscriber, transitioning to an employee who has quickly ascended through the ranks. She started as an editorial assistant in 2018, just two years after receiving her degree in literature and creative writing from Fordham University. Before her literary career, she was a classically trained ballet dancer who moved to New York in 2011 to perform with the Joffrey Ballet School, once living in a cramped West Village apartment with six roommates and only one bathroom.

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

She spent numerous hours each day dancing at Joffrey and attended night classes at Fordham University. Concurrently, she was auditioning for professional dance companies and sometimes took up babysitting jobs to make some additional money.

“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.”

BOTM offered that opportunity for expansion, “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.”

Goodman typically reads about five books each week. Although she leads a six-person editorial team responsible for reviewing submissions, she ensures she reads every book that BOTM endorses from start to finish.

“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 remarks, placing her hand over her heart to underscore her feelings.

She has reduced her library from 500 to 250 books due to a recent move to a new apartment. Her weekdays are packed with meetings with agents, publishers, and authors, so she dedicates time to reading on weekends and early mornings before work. Being a natural early bird, she’s up by 6 a.m. Books are a constant presence in her home, scattered across her coffee table and tucked into living room corners. Whenever friends come over, she often gifts them a book or two. When asked whether books occupy her nightstand, she chuckles, “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.”