With over one million members (and growing), The Literary Guild is one of the largest and most distinguished book clubs today. Developed in the fashion of European guilds as a light-weight equivalent of the Book-of-the-Month Club, it has been in existence since 1927; first as a mail-order outfit only, and at present as a mail order and Internet based service. The club relies on a common operational formula for book clubs: an alluring introductory offer is combined with a commitment to buy a certain amount of books within a certain amount of time at a discounted price, and spiced with an attractive catalog that helps the members choose among the plethora of reading choices.
Let's see how this works in more detail.
Like most commitment book clubs, The Literary Guild features two different selections. Initial selection is intended for prospective members: it is available for everyone to search through and browse. This is where you choose your five introductory books from. Member selection expands on this inaugural library significantly, and is accessible to active members only.
Initial Selection
To potential members, Literary Guild Book Club offers quite an extensive assortment (over 1000 titles) of best selling fiction and non-fiction – mostly hardcover editions – spanning a wide range of categories: mysteries & thrillers; contemporary fiction; women's fiction; fantasy fiction; children's books; biographies & memoirs; healthy living; home & garden; spirituality etc.
If you're a book lover with an interest in latest best selling titles spanning a broad range of genres, then you've arrived to the right place. At TLG, you will find most of the books currently dominating the bestseller lists, but also the ones that have done so in the past few months. In addition, there is plenty of somewhat older titles by many of the widely popular contemporary authors; you can find entire libraries by James Patterson, Nora Roberts, Danielle Steel, Stephen King, Sandra Brown, John Grisham, Patricia Cornwell, Nicholas Sparks, Dean Koontz, Sylvia Browne – to name just a few. What's more, many of these books aren't readily available in book stores – not the hardcover versions, anyway – plus they are often very attractively priced ($7.99 or so).
You should be aware, however, that some authors are better represented than others, so, if there's a specific name you are particularly interested in, checking her/his representation before joining is a good idea.
Non-fiction is not exactly one of Literary Guild's stronger points, but still, if trendy titles are where your interest lies, there's a pretty good chance TLG will not disappoint you.
Member Selection
When you join the club, you will have a much wider selection of books to choose from. As a member, you are granted access to all the books carried by other Booksonline.com clubs (over 70,000 titles in total), including Book-of-the-Month Club (for a bit more "literary" selection), One Spirit Book Club (spiritual and inspirational books), The Good Cook, Science Fiction Book Club, Rhapsody (romance books), Mystery Guild, Children's Book of the Month, Black Expressions (books by, for and about African-Americans), Quality Paperback Book Club, HomeStyle Books and many others. Note that all the same rules apply to these books (a purchase counts toward member's commitment obligation etc).
Joining
Joining The Literary Guild Book Club is quite easy: it takes only a few minutes and can be done on the club web site. You won't even need a credit card. To each new member the club presents a great introductory offer: 5 books of your choice for 99¢. Simply start shopping and add five books to your cart. When done, you will be taken to a page where you can review the contents of your shopping cart. At this point you can still delete an item if you change your mind and go back to select another one. You are also offered a chance to buy one more book of your choice for $5.99 (look in the upper right corner) and thus reduce your commitment right away. It's a pretty generous offer, so you might want to take it.
At the next stage you will need to enter your personal information, which includes your name, shipping address and e-mail address. Phone number is optional. That done, you will be prompted to choose your billing method. You can either pay by credit card, or select the “Bill Me” option in which case you will be sent an invoice to the address you provided on the previous page.
The last step requires you to set up a password which you'll need to access the members only area. Setting up the password will also confirm your membership. And that's it. You're in.
Modus Operandi
As a member you will receive the free Literary Guild Magazine approximately once every 3 weeks. Each issue of the Magazine features two Selections, new books chosen by The Literary Guild editors as the must-read of the moment. In addition, there is over 180 other books for you to consider.
The Magazine offers real value. There are hundreds of books being published each month, so the editors have to plough through a lot of titles to come up with the ones you should consider. Becoming a Main Selection, therefore, is quite a feat, only the best can make it to that status. Furthermore, the Selections these days are accommodated to your personal taste, based on your prior purchases and stated interests. In short, the Magazine provides a great way to keep current with the happenings in the literary world, find out about the latest releases from your favorite writers, or discover some fresh new talent. Many people actually keep memberships in different book clubs mainly for this reason: to receive guidance and recommendations on what's hot.
The current Main Selections will be sent to you automatically, unless you specifically refuse it. You can do that online, via the club web site, or by returning the Member Reply Form (included with the Magazine) through regular mail. This practice is known as “negative option” or “advance consent” marketing and it has been utilized by book clubs such as The Literary Guild for more than eight decades. Some people consider it a nuisance, a relic of the past, others find it convenient.
While we are inclined to agree with the former group, in all fairness it needs to be said that these days the hassle really is reduced to a minimum: it's just a matter of logging in to your account on the club's official web site, selecting the “Main Selections” tab and clicking on the “Don't Send” button. And that's it. You're done. It only takes a minute or so of your time once every three weeks. The important thing is not to forget to do it, and The Literary Guild Book Club will even assist you in the matter by sending you a reminder e-mail before the Selection is shipped.
Finally, if you do happen to forget to cancel the Selection, you can always send it back if you really don't want it. You won't even have to pay for the return postage so long as the package was not open.
Managing Your Account Online
In this area The Literary Guild Book Club deserves only praise: the web site makes it easy and convenient to manage every aspect of your membership online. View detailed order and payment history; check the account balance, remaining commitment, and the shipping status of all recent orders; respond to the current Main Selection or view older Selections; change your billing and shipping address and other personal details including payment method; choose shipping method, and, of course, browse or search TLG's entire library and place orders.
You might also want to participate in Literary Guild's online community where you can share your own book reviews and recommendations with other club members. This is also the place to find exclusive interviews, read profiles of your favorite authors and excerpts from their latest books.
Once your commitment (4 books within 2 years) is fulfilled, you are free to cancel your membership. The process, not surprisingly, is a trifle more difficult than joining. You don't have an option to simply close your account online, but instead have to send an e-mail to TLG's customer service, or a written cancellation request to the Member Service Center. A bit of a complication, in our opinion not entirely unavoidable. But then, perhaps we are being too finicky here. It is, after all, just one simple e-mail.
It goes without saying that you will always be welcome back should you decide to rejoin. You can do so simply by visiting the club web site and enrolling again. Better yet, if you give it a bit of time, you are likely to receive an invitation from The Literary Guild to rejoin the club; there might be special offer attached to such an invitation, and these offers are often even more advantageous than the standard one available on the web site (lower commitment, for example).
From the great introductory offer, via club discounts to various special offers, savings are undoubtedly one of the best things about The Literary Guild Book Club and for many probably the #1 reason to join. This being such an important subject, we have put together a separate page with detailed information on it and a real-world example.
Shipping Rates
A word or two on shipping charges as they are somewhat complicated. With the initial order the cost is $5.74 for the first book and $1.99 for each additional book. Somewhat high, but we suspect this goes some way toward recouping the loss TLG has to be generating by giving you first 5 books for practically nothing. With subsequent orders the charges are $3.99 for the first book and $2.49 for others. If your total order exceeds $25, The Literary Guild will charge you $2.49 flat shipping rate for the whole package.
Free shipping would have been better; it certainly has a nicer ring to it, plus all decent online book shops are offering it. That said, with online retailers not each and every item is usually eligible for free shipping, so you might end up having to pay for it anyway. TLG, on the other hand, will ship you everything you put in your basket for $2.49 as long as the total of your order exceeds $25. So, all things considered, this is a pretty good deal.
For credit card orders, Express Delivery is available. Express orders incur an additional $5.99 per shipment. State sales tax will be added if shipped to NY, PA, IN, TX, TN, NJ, or SC.
Payment
The Literary Guild Book Club gives you an option to pay by credit card (Visa, MasterCard, American Express), or be billed later. If you choose to pay by credit card, you will be charged when your order ships. Otherwise, the bill will arrive with the shipment and you can settle it either by using your credit card, or by sending in money order or check.
In order for this to work, the club grants you a certain amount of credit. Each time you pay on time, your credit increases, up to a maximum of $500. Note that you might be charged a late fee (approximately $4), if your bill is not settled on time. However, this fee can usually be removed by giving a call to customer support and explaining why the payment is late.
Billing methods are part of your profile and you can add or change your preferred method as you like. You will also have a chance to change the method during the checkout process. If you don't, the method specified the last time you ordered from the site will be used.
If you are a regular book buyer with a penchant for latest fiction bestsellers, joining The Literary Guild Book Club is certainly worth a serious consideration. You get first five books for next to nothing, a minimum 50% discount on all subsequent books you purchase, plus a shiny magazine in your mail every three weeks or so with book reviews, author interviews, and book-industry related articles.
Since you are not required to part with any money up front, joining is completely risk-free. If for whatever reason you don't like the introductory package, or if you simply change your mind, just return it to The Literary Guild within 20 days and that's that. No strings attached.
The only real downside to the whole deal is the somewhat awkward business model the club employs, which requires you to take action if you don't want to take action – that is, buy the proposed book. In our opinion, however, just getting a free magazine with recommendations on what to read outweighs this inconvenience by a hefty margin.
Good thing is, even if you feel the practice is an absolute deal breaker, you can still take advantage of the incredible introductory offer of 5 books for 99¢ if it tickles your fancy. How? Join, take care of the commitment at once and cancel. You can walk away with 9 hardcover bestsellers for less than $60, and that includes shipping charges. A deal worth thinking about.
