While attending the Bookseller’s Children’s Conference, I was delighted by the presence of Anissa de Gomery, co-founder and CEO of Fairyloot, a book subscription service. I first subscribed to Fairyloot in 2017, when I was a young adult, after watching one of my favourite BookTubers advertising it on her platform. I remember feeling as though a door had been opened into not only a new community but a complete new universe for me, hundreds of new fantasy worlds and characters, different magic systems and love triangles. Prior to this, the only social platform for finding my next read was of course, Goodreads, which, though now it has adapted, never marketed books in a way that grabbed my attention. Of course there were bookshops to explore, however they did not necessarily market towards the Romantasy YA novels I wanted to find out more about. Romantasy was not a coined genre when I was growing up, and it was difficult to find fiction that included elements of both fantasy and romance genres while keeping a YA reader in mind.

Fairyloot was targeted at readers who wanted exactly what I wanted from a book, characters aged between 14 and 20, escapism through magical elements and characters… vampires, werewolves, witches and wizards.

Anissa de Gomery, beautifully summarised this at the Booksellers Children’s Conference, stating, ‘You feel like you’re getting a little piece of that book in your hands whether it’s the character art work or the edges or the alternate jacket, you just sort of feel like you’ve stepped into that world and you know that there are many other people that will be getting that edition too so that you can all sort of be part of a book club in a sense… a global book club.’

That last phrase she used – a global book club, tells you how important this is for YA readers, the whole world is involved! It can be hard to engage in the book community as a young adult, since reading is not incredibly popular or encouraged in school. Having a subscription box and the world of social media at your back can help any reader feel that they are not alone. As stated on their website, ‘the goal has always been to share their love for fantasy with book lovers around the world and foster a passionate community of like-minded readers.’

Not only do they offer a YA box, however, it also mentions on their website https://fairyloot.com/ that they offer ‘Book-Only subscription plans for Young Adult, Adult and Romantasy readers,’ demonstrating how wide their range is. Their website is also simply magical in and of itself, including features such as a quiz you can take to find out the subscription most suited to you, a blog that gets updated frequently, and a magical looking sparkle that follows your cursor around the page.

Of course I took the quiz, and in answer to the question ‘what excites you most about a book subscription?’ I had to answer, ‘the excitement of reading a great book with like-minded people.’

What more could a young reader want than their very own global book club?

References

De Gomery, Anissa. (2024) ‘What’s next for YA?’ Bookseller Children’s Conference. [online] [Accessed 30/09/2024]

Fairyloot. (2016) Fairyloot | Compare Subscription Plans. [online] Available at: https://fairyloot.com/compare-subscriptions/ [Accessed 15/10/2024]

Photographs used courtesy of Fairyloot.com