Quite a lot of people prefer to buy softcover books as opposed to hardcover ones and not just because they come cheaper: they also take up less space, are easier to carry around and deal with when traveling etc. To accomodate this market segment, the Quality Paperback Book Club was founded in 1974. The basic idea was to take the best titles from a variety of genres and reprint them in softcover format at substantial savings to its members.
The club relies on what could be called a standard operational procedure for book clubs: an enticing introductory offer is combined with an obligation 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 wade through the plethora of reading choices.
Quality Paperback 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 six introductory books from. Member selection expands on this inaugural library significantly, and is accessible to active members only.
Initial Selection
To potential members, Quality Paperback Book Club offers quite an extensive assortment of both fiction and non-fiction – mostly in paperback form – spanning a wide range of categories: from popular bestsellers over somewhat more serious (and more present) literary fiction to the non-fiction domain which includes history, biography, science, spirituality, psychology, self-improvement, current events, humor and more.
QPB also maintains its own publishing program which mostly features classical works usually not available anywhere else.
Another widely touted feature of QPB's is its Early Softcover program: it stands for paperback editions available only to the club members, up to six full months before they come out in softcover anywhere else. From the way it is advertised one might infer that the majority of books published in hardcover form are available through this program, however, that is not really the case. You will actually find few of the most popular titles that are reigning the bestseller lists here. The emphasis seems to be more on quality rather than quantity, literary fiction and quality non-ficiton is apparently the order of the day. Here are a few examples of some widely successful books available in the paperback form exclusively at QPB at the time of this writing: A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini; World Without End by Ken Follet; The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold; Clapton by Eric Clapton etc.
So, who shouldn't join Quality Paperback? Obviously, if you're not into softcover books then you're in the wrong place. Also, if your main interest are latest bestsellers by hugely popular authors such as John Grisham, Nora Roberts, James Patterson etc – then you might want to reconsider your QPB membership plans as well. Not that these books aren't available at Quality Paperback. Many of them are, but in hardcover form – and you'll get a better deal on them at either Doubleday Book Club or The Literary Guild. But softcover commercial fiction, books by Danielle Steel, Nicholas Sparks, Patricia Cornwell, Janet Evanovich, Dean Koontz... just don't seem to be QPB's stronger side.
Member Selection
Full club members have a much wider selection of books to choose from. They have access to all the books carried by other Booksonline.com clubs (over 70,000 titles), including the afore mentioned Doubleday and Literary Guild, 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), History Book Club and many others. Note that all the same rules apply to these books (a purchase counts toward member's commitment obligation etc).
Joining
Joining Quality Paperback Book Club is quite easy: it takes only a few minutes and can be done on the club web site. Not even a credit card is necessary. To each new member the club extends a great introductory offer: 6 books of your choice for $1 each. Simply start shopping and add six 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 remove an item if you change your mind and continue shopping for another one. You are also offered an opportunity to buy one more book for $4.99 (look in the upper right corner) and thus reduce your commitment right away to a single book. It's a fair 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
QPB membership implies the obligation to buy two more books at the club's discounted prices within one year. As a member you will receive the free QPB Review approximately once every 3 weeks. Each issue of the Review features a Selection, new book chosen by the club's editors as the must-read of the moment, plus over 150 other books for you to consider.
The Review offers real value. There are masses of paperback books being published each month, so the editors have to cut through a lot of titles to present you the ones you should consider. QPB Review, therefore, provides a great way to keep current with the happenings in the literary world, find out about the latest titles from your favorite authors, or discover some fresh new talent. Many people actually keep memberships in different book clubs mainly for this reason: to receive recommendations on what's hot.
The current Featured Selection will be sent to you automatically, unless you tell the club otherwise. You can do so 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 Quality Paperback 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 “Featured 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 QPB 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 respect Quality Paperback Book Club deserves much plaudit: 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 Featured 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 QPB's entire library and place orders.
You might also want to participate in the club's online community, where you can share your own book reviews and recommendations with other members. This is also the place to find exclusive interviews, read profiles of your favorite authors and excerpts from their latest books.
Quality Paperback membership is not exactly a “till death do us part” affair. Once your commitment 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 QPB's customer service, or a written cancellation request to the Member Service Center. A bit of a complication, in our opinion not entirely necessary. 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, as described earlier in this review. However, there might be an even better way to do it. If you don't cancel your e-mail subscription as well, you are likely to receive periodic invitations to rejoin the club; usually there is a special offer attached to such an invitation, and these offers are often even more advantageous than the standard one available on the web site (no shipping on the introductory books, for example).
From the great introductory offer, via club discounts to various special offers, savings are undoubtedly one of the best things about Quality Paperback 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.
If you are a book enthusiast with a penchant for quality softcover titles from pretty much any genre, joining Quality Paperback Book Club is certainly worth a serious consideration. You get first six books for next to nothing, up to 45% 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 devoid of risk. If for whatever reason you don't like the introductory package, or if you simply change your mind, just return the package to Quality Paperback Book Club 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.
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 6 books for $6 if it tickles your fancy. How? Join, take care of the commitment at once and cancel. You can walk away with 8 softcover bestsellers for less than $50, and that includes shipping charges. Hardly a deal you will find anywhere else.
