A Special Edition kind of FOMO & Consumerism in the Book Community

"What's another $50?"

Author’s note: If I’m pointing fingers in this essay, trust me, they’re all at myself, because I am just as much of a guilty party as any other book lover who gets distracted by ludicrously expensive special editions.

It’s a tale as old as time,

You take a break from the noise of the real world and open up your favorite social media app for browsing through the (arguably louder) noise of the internet. If you’re in the book community (or, really, any niche hobby community, let’s be real) - you’ll inevitably be met with a post sharing or highlighting a special edition release.

Oftentimes these releases are tied to subscriptions, but not all the time. Sometimes they’ll be single releases, with drop times and comments filled with readers asking how much stock there will be, if there will be a cart saving system, or if the checkout queue will take hours. The day of the sale comes, and if you return to that same post, you’ll find a slew of comments either celebrating snagging a rare copy, or others complaining that it sold out in seconds.

And there’s nothing, inherently, wrong with any of this.

Money makes the world go ‘round - especially when it’s supporting artists that work extremely hard on special editions, from designing hardcovers to illustrating endpapers, to the literal formatting of the pages. Where it does become an issue, is when the greater book community becomes an exclusive club, inaccessible unless you have a fat wallet, or a fat credit card limit.

A selection of my own special editions that I’ve shared on social media in the past year. From left to right: Bride by Ali Hazelwood (Owlcrate exclusive), The Bergman Brothers series by Chloe Liese (Afterlight exclusive), Faebound by Saara El-Arifi (Fairyloot exclusive)

One of the earliest commentary blog posts I could find on consumerism and it’s ties, directly, to bookstagam (Book + Instagram) was from Taryn and Her Books, written in 2018. In it, the author discusses how her love of reading began as a child, where she was often a patron of her local library, or independent bookstores when she had the cash to spend. That all changed, however, when she joined the online community of readers that constantly had a new must-read to share.

I couldn’t help but stop when I read that. Memories of being a child, books stacked high in my arms every single time I visited the local library. I remember my elementary school library requiring my mom to send a note to approve of how many books I was checking out and reading at one time. When did this stop? When did my love of books shift from browsing endless shelves and borrowing to curating a collection? The only place I can point my finger is at social media.

This Keeping-Up-With-The-Joneses of the book community has been a slow creep for a decade.

Taryn’s blog is a worthwhile read for a myriad of reasons. Glimpsing a world pre-TikTok struggling with engagement lows when posting used or library hauls will always interest me. Because, at the end of the day, it’s never been about the platform that the content is being posted to, but the content itself.

When you have a hobby that can range in price, from free library books to spending literal thousands on a single copy of a book, the realistic expectation is that there will be space for all different kinds of readers to interact and find a community. What, insead, it becomes, is a veritable rat race of who has the most aesthetically pleasing, full shelves, owning multiple copies of the same series, merch, signed editions, and more. That’s consumerism, baby.

When I say consumerism, what do I mean? The literal definition from the Oxford English Dictionary is as follows:

Consumerism, n: Advocacy of the rights and interests of consumers

That’s it. There’s no hidden trap door that makes the term negative, however, there is a multi-layered history that has shifted the term from advocacy (where the -ism word ending comes into play) to a term, more often, used to highlight the mass amount of stuff that has become so popular to own in the modern era.

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With the invention of the printing press (and the Industrial Revolution), books suddenly became a form of entertainment that could be enjoyed anywhere and everywhere. No longer were monks spending hours just to illustrate the word the at the top of a flimsy page.

Spongebob absolutely nailed his essay intro.

Instead, chapbooks and hardcovers became a status symbol. If you had the funds to fill a home library (in the west, at least), you not only were communicating to the larger community that you had spare wealth, but that you had spare time and the formal education to actually read them. The time investment of reading materials made it clear that the owner was not working all hours of the day, struggling to read only by candlelight in the evenings. It was the ultimate trifecta: money, time, and education.

This hasn’t changed, in fact, I’d argue that it’s become worse with the rise of internet fame and inviting others to peek into our lives on a regular basis.

When you have platforms built on sharing, there will always be an element of competition that will layer over every interaction. At the end of the day, people will often engage with the content that they want to take part in - because their engagement is them subtly attempting to invite it into their current life.

It becomes clear that the content that performs best is wish-fulfillment.

Wish fulfillment goes hand-in-hand with FOMO (or fear of missing out), where limited stocks lead to higher sales, because once it’s gone, it’s gone. If there’s no chance to grab a product down the line, then it only makes sense to purchase now, pay later just to keep up with the unrealistic expectations that feed engagement and the rise of micro-infamy in niche communities.

I’ve found myself trapped in this endless loop before. I see others raving about specific books, or series, and then, in turn, find myself wanting to pre-order special editions because I know they’ll inevitably sell out. And even though I haven’t read them yet, what if I do? What if that suddenly becomes my favorite series and I’ve missed out on a copy of a book that is truly special and a shelf statement piece?

It’s a vicious cycle. It’s the root of the issue of wanting to have copies I can be proud of and are a true collector’s piece, while also struggling with the fact that so often, these days, special editions come with a price tag that can make anyone’s eyes water.

If the book community was truly about the love of reading, it stands to say that text reviews would bring in the most engagement on social media, but that’s just not the case. When I ran my own BookTube (Book + YouTube), the videos that did the best were the hauls of books, emptying my own wallet so I could flash up a title and say, “The cover is pretty, so I bought it!”

The speed of over-consumption has increased in the past few years, with reading receiving a significant popularity boost as a hobby during the pandemic. Reading became a way to connect with people informally and virtually by sharing thoughts online about favorite books and characters. Unfortunately, with that came a publishing industry that saw a chance to make even more sales to drag in a whole new generation of readers.

If you know anything about the popular series or authors now, you’ll know that there’s often never just one edition. Multiple stores will receive slightly different first printing copies of books, varying from essays in the back, to bonus chapters, to sprayed edges, different covers, or other customizations. At the heart, the story remains the same, but for a fan, the draw to engross yourself in the world means owning or accessing all the available material. And don’t we all just want to escape from reality for a little while into our favorite books?

AKA, it’s about to get expensive, and you could end up owning six plus copies of the same book.

From a marketing perspective, it’s genius. Why have a fan buy one copy, when they’ll buy ten for slightly different reasons? From an ecological perspective - the whales are dying, the seas are rising, and the rainforest is burning.

That’s a little dramatic, but you and I both know the drain of resources can be felt now more than ever with the global temperature rising and crises occurring daily from humanitarian issues to economical crashes.

Printing costs have become a huge topic in the publishing industry in recent years, with paper pulp becoming more expensive as demands rise. A lot of the industry is transparent - a book has to be worthwhile to print. Industry professions are no longer as ready to gamble on a debut, that might never sell enough to offset the sheer costs of printing, marketing, and shipping to place it on shelves.

And I get it, from both an author perspective, and a reader perspective. Publishers are attempting to run a business, and why print a limited run of a debut novel, when you can do the 50th printing of a series you know will sell and bring you money? For a bookstore, why stock a new release with no fans, when you can stock a popular book that will sell and help you make rent?

The same can be said for special editions. In a world that knows consumer money is limited, why take a risk on hiring artists for a book that might not be popular enough to offset the printing costs? At the end of the day, the cogs in the machine are trying to keep spinning, not stall out and risk the entire industry crashing around them.

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So, what do we do, as readers and consumers when the next special edition releases that we really want?

I don’t think there’s a solid answer.

There are plenty of readers who aren’t tempted by the special editions that exist, who are content and happy to read digitally or loaned editions. In today’s world, I ride the line between wanting to own physical copies of my favorites, in case we’re about to enter into the first season of The Walking Dead and I no longer have internet access - and understanding that owning hundreds of unread books makes me part of the problem.

I’m striving to fight my own FOMO and return to the joy of reading, as an act, not as a collection. I do still want special editions, but I’m limiting myself to purchasing ones of books I’ve already read and adore. I want physical copies so I can, eventually, be that rich and fancy kept woman reading fae smut and sipping coffee in my massive two story library. But I also don’t want to own stacks of unread books that I have no desire to read.

I’ve begun the long process of reading my unread books, or selling them/sharing them with family and friends. Recently, I took a box of 50 to a used bookstore near me, gave around 20 to my mother and sister, and listed books online for other collectors to purchase for their own shelves. Right now, I have around 300 unread books scattered across my living space, from standard paperbacks to special editions.

The collection I’ve amassed over the last few years of being in the book community is sometimes a point of shame for me. Shame that I’ve spent so much, shame that I own in excess, and shame that I can point to so many titles and say I’ve not read them yet. But, as someone who’s been a reader her entire life, I can’t help but see the stories as something exciting.

I love picking up a pretty edition, flipping open the cover to see art of the characters I’m about to meet, gasping over foiled quotes on a hardback, and getting to read bound author letters inside the book itself.

That love of reading a special edition, though, doesn’t discredit my joy when I pick up a random standard paperback and find out the story inside is just as vivid as those bells and whistles on a special edition. The joy of reading, for me, comes from being able to sink into a story that unfurls into its own world in my head. The love comes when I find myself thinking about the characters long after I close the pages, sprayed edges or not.

Like I said above, there’s nothing inherently wrong with buying special editions. It’s just a journey of understanding your own limits, and understanding your own reasons for owning, collecting, and interacting with your hobbies. As long as you’re doing it for the joy of reading, the joy of supporting authors and artists, and the joy of having a truly special copy of one of your favorite books - it’s okay.

It’s also okay to take a step back and cancel those subscriptions when you find you aren’t reading the books, though. It’s okay to only wait and buy a book when you love it and want that specific version to own. It’s also okay to buy used, borrow from the library, or grab a discounted ebook copy over a physical one.

Personally, I’m going into the final few months of the year really looking at what boxes and book subscriptions I get the most joy out of. I’ve been asking myself a few questions regarding what I feel like spending my money on going forward.

Questions to ask yourself regarding book purchases:

• What subscription boxes have picked books that I’ve already loved, or read and adored? Are there subscriptions that I could cancel?

• What boxes have things that I use included (when merch is a part of it)? Are the merch/goodies worth paying a higher monthly price?

• What business accounts are worth following on socials? Alternatively: Are there accounts I can unfollow to reduce last-minute spending or FOMO?

• Does my library have an edition of a book I can read over buying a standard edition? (Hoopla, Libby) Or is the book available on KU, where I could read it first?

• If I had the money for this purchase physically in my hand and I was standing at the register in a physical bookstore, would I feel comfortable with handing over cash to pay for it?

• For sequel purchases: Did I read the first book and already love it/rate it highly? How likely am I to read the second book when it arrives on my doorstep?

• For last-minute purchases: How big is my TBR? How likely am I to pick up this book to read immediately? Could I see myself getting rid of this book, unread, in a year?

All these questions have led me to cancel one subscription already, while also making it a personal goal to read a specific number of physical books per year. If you’re not afraid of spoilers, I’d highly encourage anyone who does like to have book subscriptions follow one of the many accounts on Instagram who post about what books will be included in what subscription. It’s a great way to make use of skipping months and not receiving books you won’t read! (My favorite is Autumn! Shout out to her IG: theautumnbookreads).

The publishing industry will still continue to churn out different editions of the same titles, but we, as consumers, can make the call on what really deserves the investment of our money and our resources.

It’s an individual’s choice.

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I had a great time writing this first personal essay! Consumerism and special editions have both been topics I’ve wanted to write at-length about for a while. I hope this at least gave you pause, and a few moments to reflect on how you’d like to interact with special editions and limited printings going forward.

Truthfully, I see a lot of anger in the community when printings sell quickly, or resellers mark up prices. These topics deserve their own essay, along with the issue of online accessibility for special/bonus content (something, that, admittedly, also grinds my gears). Maybe those will be essays down the line!

I’d love to hear any comments or thoughts on this topic, whether you feel strongly in either direction. Feel free to leave them below!