Who doesn't love getting a box in the mail! Better yet a mystery box. And even better than that, a mystery box that you know has books in it.
I have always been a fan of the subscription box. There are a lot out there and many that just cater to the horror genre like Loot Fright, Coffin Box and ZChest. But I have found that although I enjoyed getting them every month, I would end up with a bunch of junk items that would get thrown in a drawer and forgotten. Now some people might really enjoy these random items, but you can only have so many tote bags, plastic replicas or water bottles.
I was excited when I started Nocturnal Readers Box. It was a box geared towards the horror reader, and for a time they did deliver some quality boxes with various books and items. But then they suffered a horrible implosion and lots of negative things came to light. I enjoyed the box, and then I had to deal with the fallout like hundreds of others, trying to get our money back. For the whole story on this look up the You Tube videos by Edward Lorn and The Horror Show with Brian Keene podcast.
So needless to say I have been a little gun shy when it comes to jumping into another subscription box. Recently there has been the announcement of two upcoming boxes that are once again specifically targeting the horror reading fan. After reading up on them I decided to take a chance again. Let's take a look at the new boxes and what they offer.
The first box up is Twitterstone.
Twitterstone is a offshoot of Journalstone Publishing. Journalstone was another victim of the NRB fiasco. This is now their chance to get into the subscription box market and to hopefully recoup some of the money they lost to NRB.
Twitterstone will be a bi-monthly subscription box that is for the horror book fan. The first box will be Halloween themed and is stated to contain two books and a few bonus items that match the book releases. Journalstone has a very large published library and we are sure to see a lot of these titles appear in the boxes. The box can be ordered now at Twitterstone.com. You can purchase the Halloween box alone for $38.95 and give it a try, or you can jump right in and start a bi-monthly subscription.
The next box is the one I am most excited for.
The Night Worms started off as a group of horror book reviewers. If you are at all active on Twitter or Instagram you have probably run across their posts.
Recently they have turned the Night Worms into a business and will be starting with a brand new horror themed box. A box aimed at reader by readers. What more could you want. I reached out to the Night Worms for some more info and received a very informative response from Sadie (Mother Horror) herself. Rather than trying to rephrase what she sent, I wanted to post the info directly...
"So what sets Night Worms apart from other subscription boxes is the
experience Ashley and I have in navigating the industry from a reading
& reviewing standpoint first and foremost. We are fans of the horror
genre. We have been promoting books, publishers and authors in the
niche market of horror for over a year. Both of us also worked for a
horror subscription box as representatives of that company for over six
months combined and learned a lot about what we enjoyed about
subscription box services and what we didn't enjoy.
Ashley and
I will be striving to make our brand fit the culture and context of the
horror industry. We want our potential customers to know that we will
not be emphasizing horror merchandise as much as we will focus on
reading and reviewing the books. We plan on rewarding our customers with
lots of fun stuff for doing reviews and promoting horror. We also are
in a Beta phase of business and we are not offering subscriptions, just
first come, first serve-limited quantity supply. We believe that
companies rushing into subscription services end up disappointing
customers by failing on shipping promises and not keeping up with
demands. We want to scale our company thoughtfully and responsibly.
Night
Worms will be doing a preorder of our first box on Halloween! And
people who want to stay in the loop can follow us on social media and
sign up for our newsletters." ~Sadie "Mother Horror"
Wow, those few paragraphs say a lot on what we can expect out of the Night Worms. Here we have two curators who have experience with subscription boxes and in the horror publishing community. If you are not familiar with Sadie "Mother Horror" Hartman then shame on you. Any horror book fan should be following Sadie. She is a prolific book reviewer and bookstagramer. She is also a published reviewer for Scream Magazine and Cemetery Dance Publications. When it comes to books, there could not be a better person suited for the job of putting together a horror literary box.
I also really like the idea of rewarding customers for posting reviews of the featured books and helping to promote horror. This is something that is important to me. Not the rewards part in general, but the promoting horror among the self published and small press publishers. What a wonderful way to support the industry.
As Sadie stated, the first box will be a first served limited quantity box. There are no price or subscription option released at this time. We will probably see more info pop up when the site goes live on Halloween. As of the last post from Night Worms, it looks like the site will go live at 8am PST. So right now I think I feel a slow developing cold coming on that I will need to stay home and nurse on Halloween morning. And nothing is better for a cold than sitting in front of a computer continually hitting the refresh button.
And please make sure to visit nightworms.com on Halloween to order you box.
I have already ordered my box from Twitterstone and will hopefully get to order one from Night Worms on Halloween. I will post a review of each box when they arrive.
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