New book gift subscription for dyslexic teens: how to convert views to sales?

[tmookins]

Hi all,
I have recently started a small business curating book gifts for tweens and teens with dyslexia friendly options. Each monthly box can be purchased as a one off gift or as a monthly subscription and comes with some sweet treats and themed extras. I am a chartered school librarian and former primary school teacher and love helping children find the right book at the right time. I have been getting lots of views on Instagram, some traffic to my website, but very few sales. Looking for some advice on how to engage with people, spread the word and turn views into sales! Not sure if I can post the name here…?!
many thanks in advance for your help and suggestions.

Is your site designed to be dyslexic friendly? I’m thinking that people who want to buy this may themselves be dyslexic.

Is your marketing targeted? People may be clicking though but they don’t know anyone dyslexic to buy it for.

Price? Could they be put off by the price.

How long have you been trading? It takes time.

Your first picture with the pink writing on a white background, I think is not easy to read. Pastel backgrounds with dark letters is better. But a site where you can change the background colour and text colour could be a good call.

Thank you @fruitbrewhaha for your reply. The target customers are those buying for their own tweens and teens, or those buying for family / friends with children. I offer 4 book titles a month to choose from (a tween, dyslexia friendly tween, teen and dyslexia friendly teen). I only launched in february so this is my second month - I’m self funding so cautious that any sales I make at the moment will be going towards the next month’s stock. Price I think is at the higher end, but due to the gift wrapping and personalised hand written cards I think fair (others may not!!) - I also don’t have any hidden extras everything including postage is included in the price (£25 monthly subscription or £28 one off gift).

The price puts me off. It's steep!

You can go to Amazon and buy a book, and The Works for stationary bits for a lot cheaper and get more bang for your buck.

It’s price. I can see what book you’re offering, so I can put together that same gift pack for closer to £10.

For 25 do you get the four books? In that case I don't think it's bad value, but couldn't afford it every month for a niece/nephew.
What about audiobooks?

Oh ok, I've just checked the website. Just the one book.
It's a nice idea for a one off, but far too much £ for a subscription.

Yes I do agree that books are cheaper on Amazon! However, this is a thoughtfully chosen book gift that is hand gift wrapped and packed with themed extras including bookmarks, stickers, stationery, hot chocolate and sweets. Messages are personalised and hand written. Postage is also included in the price. But I will keep this in mind. I subscribe to a younger one for my child, that is £22.50 plus p&p and doesn’t offer as much! Currently offering a 10% discount on one off purchases. Thanks for your feedback, I really appreciate your time.

It looks very charming, OP, but quite over-curated, which pushes the price up. Does your target market really want to pay more than £10 for the additional sweet treat, hot chocolate, gift wrapping and handwritten note? (What is even the value-add of a handwritten note in this situation?)

Also, it's hard to tell how you've chosen the books (apart from the dyslexia option - does this just mean lower reading age). It looks entirely aimed at girls - is that right? Even then there will obviously be a massive range of reading tastes, so it might be helpful to be more explicit about your approach here.

Your website is also very dyslexia unfriendly. The white background, bright pink text and serif fonts make me doubt your ability to put together anything that is dyslexia friendly and at your price point I need absolute confidence in the value you’re adding.

It's very expensive!!

You're offering a paperback book, some sweets, stickers and a few sachets of hot chocolate for £28.

I know book boxes and subscriptions are popular these days, but they're usually hardbacks with exclusive covers, sprayed edges or signed copies.

Honestly, what you're offering isn't worth the price. Which is why no one is buying them.

Op it’s price, the Paloma bear book is £8 on amazon delivered to my door, £3 extra fo a nice three pack of pens and then you’ve some snacks included.I admit I wouldn’t be your target audience as I’ve never understood why anyone would buy a gift set of any kind - partly as I genuinely enjoy making them for people and generic combos are often never quite right. But…you’re selling your knowledge (of the books and recommendations). I wonder if there’s a better way to monetize that? If the packages were simpler and lower cost (ie could it be done at £40 for a six month subscription - with a new book posted every two months and a list of other recommendations.

But you’ve given the “thoughtfully chosen book” bit away for free. I can come into your website every month and just buy your recommended books from Amazon and give to my children. So now I already have that, why should I pay £20 for two hot chocolate sachets, some sweets, a pen and a paper bookmark (the last two I don’t need after the first box)? I’m disregarding the handwritten note as I can do a more meaningful one for my recipient myself for free.

(I think the packs look lovely by the way so I’m not trying to be mean - I’m just playing the role of the person browsing your website and then deciding not to give you their money)

I agree with a previous poster. It’s easy to see what you’re offering and then head off to replicate it yourself for less ££. I’d be a bit vaguer with my box contents.

I once revived a gift subscription to a women writers only book club (Rare Birds) Each month, there was a synopsis of two books - no titles given - and I logged on to choose which one I thought sounded good and they posted it to me. Could you add an online element like that? Especially if you’re looking to engage teens? If you’re creative, you could mock up a visual Book A and Book B front cover based on content (e.g. Book A = red/black, dragon and elf vs Book B = Pink/blue, love heart and a dog, or whatever!) Maybe there could be a poll underneath to show which way others are leaning. Make it more interactive.

Essentially, what you’re selling - over just books - is a love of reading for dyslexic teens so you need to engage beyond the product itself.

This is a really interesting viewpoint- I thought I needed to be really clear on what people were getting a so assumed no one would want to sign up if they didn’t know exactly what they were getting, but yes I see that what makes my offering unique (my experience of being a teacher and librarian) is being given away for free 🤔

Rare Birds and Mr B's Emporium both do this very well on a subscription basis. That's the way to go, so take a look at their websites. You do need to stretch to boys too.

I've never understood the MN obsession with hot chocolate sachets. You could offer the special gift as the first delivery, then simply gift wrapped mystery book thereafter.

You might need to market at events, but I'm struggling to think of which sort. The companies I named above are both independent bookshops. NOTHS have similar gift packs, but that would ruin your tiny margin even further.

I might be a bit confused, but you say there’s a choice of books when a child is only going to fit into one of those four categories. There’s no choice. Your idea is based on you using your knowledge to choose, but how do you ‘curate’ the books for an individual child if you have already chosen them? For a service like that I’d want to tell you what books my child has enjoyed in the past and tell you about their interests. Without that, a recommendation from a teacher and librarian is meaningless.

The one-off boxes could be great but from your website it looks like you get the books from all four categories, rather then four books from whichever category you chose.

I agree that the site is very dyslexia unfriendly which undermines your point about your ability to choose dyslexic friendly books, but I’m not sure I agree with the principle of giving dyslexic children different books to read anyway. They (sometimes) need different print, not different stories. your website is also very girly, so you’re cutting out half your potential audience already. Your service will appeal to people who want to buy for reluctant readers, many of whom will be boys who have no interest in stationery or a hand written message from a stranger.

You’re charging so much that you’re competing with the Fairyloot YA box, and for that DD gets an exclusive hardback with stencilled edges/foiled lettering that holds its resale value, as well as exclusive, book-linked extras. It’s also a massive deal to her and her bookish friends to work out the clues for what the book will be, a few months in advance, and then they love posting unboxing videos/ watching other people’s - the whole thing becomes a massive event in their month.

Whereas you’re doing a mass market paperback with unlinked extras (including sweets, and how many of the parents who prioritise bookish gifts also encourage sweets? This is a genuine question not a judgement!) for only a few pounds less per month.

As a PP says, by putting the book online, you’re giving away for free the unique bit of the package - your curated pick of a great book for the age-group.

I’d rethink either the package you offer, or substantially slash your pricing - even if that means minimising the extras. Because I’d love businesses like yours to succeed and more teenagers to keep reading!

I have a dyslexic tween. (Approaching 13. )
I like the idea, but in reality she wants to choose her own books now. I have limited input. The price would put be off a gift order.
I might browse your page to pick up reading suggestions for her - but generally she is in charge. 13 year olds want to make their own choices. My dd does read quite well though. Her main difficulties are writing

You definitely need to display a previous month's contents, not the current or next month's.

What about boys too?

Also to add, there’s some interesting podcast interviews with the founders of the biggest book subscription boxes - Fairyloot and Illumicrate - online, covering when they were start-ups from their lounges a decade ago. You might get some ideas there.
i used to work in publishing and unless things have changed a lot, book sales figures are so low that you would be able to get publisher interest once you’ve got (I reckon) a few hundred subscribers. They wouldn’t entertain special editions at that volume I don’t think, but they would probably sell to you wholesale, and send you early ARCs to aid you picking.

Are you getting any discount yourself on the books - working with distributors or something? If not, I can see you have an issue if you are paying RRP and having to sell on from there.

I do t want to quote the whole of the post by @BollyMollybut she mentions that sometimes people with dyslexia need a different font and I had assumed that that was what you were offering. Is it not?

If I was subscribing I would rather have no sweets and hot chocolate and either cheaper or more often. The edible parts would put me off rather than encourage me.

Thanks to everyone for your comments and suggestions. I hear you! Always difficult to hear critiques on something that you’ve spent a long time thinking about, but I do want to make this a success so I’m taking on board all of your advice. I did think that the price was quite premium, and had initially thought of pricing around the £12-£15 mark, then when I talked to friends and family they said I was under valuing it so I’m going to try and find a happy medium. From some of your comments I clearly haven’t been clear enough about the difference between the options and will work on clarifying this. I am also going to work on a more dyslexia friendly website that is also more gender neutral. I had thought the bright colours would come across as young and vibrant and fun, but this seems to have been a big miss. I will streamline the contents to make more affordable. I don’t think I’m going to keep everyone happy with sweets etc and I get that I do. Thanks also to those who pointed out that in revealing the titles in advance in just giving that away for free - I will in future reveal themes and give clues but not reveal before! Thanks all for your assistance and please do watch this space! I’m on Instagram if you would like to follow and see how this journey goes @ thebookboxgiftcompany
have a lovely day whatever you are doing today x

If I was buying books for my DC I would definitely like recommendations but:

1. As many others have said, you are just giving away your content for free.
2. You aren't personalising it at all. Though TBF when I subscribed to Willoughby Book Club for my DCs it wasn't that great: animal loving reluctant reader DS got really badly written (i.e. not at all funny) animal books (he likes Alex T Smith not cheesy tales of plucky horses) and DD who was in picture book stage but hated pink and sparkles got about 1 really fun book and then several fairy based books).
3. The extras are pointless unless they are really top end and relevant.
4. Reluctant readers are all different. Some may well want easier reads (it's rubbish about dyslexics wanting only different font, for many the sheer volume of print is overwhelming). Some want teen themes with less text. Some want funny or sweet books but that aren't too young. Some are interested in specific topics. Some like pictures.