As you can see, by joining The Literary Guild Book Club not only can you still save, but you can save big: over $10 per book compared with the chosen online retailer. For your information, in a regular book store these nine titles would amount to about $250.
Note: to achieve such savings, you need to take a bit of care when shopping. Since your first five books will cost you a total of $0.99 (plus shipping) no matter which ones you choose, it makes sense to stuff higher priced items into the introductory offer, while for the rest of your commitment you might want to pick some more competitively priced books: for the example above we have chosen four moderately priced books ($10-11).
At TLG, the newest bestsellers are typically priced at exactly half the retail price, which usually amounts to about $12-14; if those represent your sole interest, your total cost will probably be some $10-15 higher, in which case your savings compared to the online retailer will come to around $80 for nine books.
It is also possible to save even more than our example shows. At the enrollment, Literary Guild Book Club gives you the option to choose one more book for $5.99 and reduce your commitment right away. That's a few dollars not covered in our example. There are special editions to be had, such as these featured in the column to the right. As you can see, you can save almost $125 on a single book! Getting all three of these books within your introductory offer would save you a whopping $273.70! There are more great bargains like this to be had, so, as we said already, it pays to poke around a bit.
Clearly, most of the savings in the example above are due to the incredible introductory offer. Once it's been exploited, the playing field levels out to an extent, but that is not to say that The Literary Guild membership will not save you money anymore. At TLG, there are always online discounts, one day sales etc. Special offers featuring free or ridiculously low-priced books, such as "buy two books and get one for $1.99" or "buy in December, get a FREE book with your first purchase in January" will come your way all the time. Omnibuses are also a popular way to save money. You will find a mass of somewhat older titles by many popular authors (books that likely aren't available anywhere else, at least not as hardcover versions) with prices like $7.99, or lower even: $4.99 is not such a rare a price tag at The Literary Guild, and even $2.99 can be seen on occasion.
Note: you can't exploit these ultra low-priced books to fulfill your member obligation, as The Literary Guild Book Club has the minimum price for the four commitment books set at $9.98.
Another way of saving money that some people use is by canceling and rejoining – thus effectively taking advantage of the introductory offer over and over. Although The Literary Guild would prefer it by far that you stayed a member for a long time and buy many many books, and although they state that they "reserve the right to refuse memberships", if you cancel your membership and then decide to rejoin at a later date, they will usually take you back without a question. In fact, you will likely even receive a periodic invitation to rejoin, and along with it a special online code to enter at the club web site and be privy to an even better deal than the standard 5+4 offer (less commitment books, for example, or even no commitment at all).
Alternatively, to deter you from canceling in the first place, they might hit you with an offer as soon as you express the request. Seasoned re-joiners will advise you not to take the very first offer though, as better ones might follow...
While the cancel-rejoin approach will presumably save you a bit more money, not everyone would be comfortable with it. Which is just as well; as was said earlier, if you remain a loyal member, The Literary Guild Book Club will reward you with plenty of opportunities for additional savings: from free shipping to free books.
