064: It’s more than just a box - creating a curated experience with The Literary Book Club

We constantly talk about creating an experience with your box. I'm talking with Katie today. She niched down, she started a second box, and she created something she can share with her subscribers. Come join us.

Welcome to the Launch Your Box podcast with weekly tips, tricks, and strategies to start, launch, and grow your subscription box. Now here's your host, Sarah Williams.

Welcome back to the Launch Your Box podcast. I'm so excited. I've been chasing Katie around to get her on the podcast because I love her box. I love her story. I love what she does with her box, and I hope you get to soak all of that in on today's podcast. Katie, why don't you just say hi and why don't you introduce your business and your box to everybody?

Sure. Hi everybody. It's Katie. My main business is actually called Wildflower Paper Company. I've had that business for about 6 years and it's, I'm an artist. So we do stationery and stickers. And, and then I actually joined Launch Your Box because of that. We did a box specifically for that part of the business called Wildflower Club. And then while I was sort of in the depths of that, I started a little passion project called the Literary Book Club for my book nerd side. And I mostly just did it kind of for fun, mostly for myself, but then it ended up growing kind of quickly. And so we ended up actually discontinuing one part of the sub box to focus on this part of the sub box instead. And so I kind of have the two businesses, but they're really all under one. And there's just kind of two different audiences for them. Okay.

So let's take them back. Let's take them back to the Wildflower— was it the Wildflower Paper Club? Was that what it was?

Wildflower Club was the name of the box. And we're still going to use that name for, you know, one-time boxes and little gift boxes and stuff like that. Because, because people really enjoyed getting the boxes. So when I started it, it was during— I joined during 2020. Yeah, and we had been doing mystery boxes, and I don't know how— I think I saw a Facebook ad and I was like, oh, launch your box. Well, we've kind of been doing that with the mystery boxes because during the pandemic we couldn't go do shows and art fairs like we had been doing. So we started doing mystery boxes, and then I joined the course in July of 2020 and ended up actually being able to launch by October for that box. And it was really fun, and it was a great— we did it for about a year. We had— I think we ended with like 100 subscribers when we actually— just, I mean, it was a good box and people—

it was a great box.

Yeah, we focused on small businesses only, a lot of women-owned, so it was real artisan products. And then we always did some of our own Wildflower Paper Company stuff in there too. And it was fun. It was a little— it wasn't niche at all, really. I mean, it was kind of wildflower themed, but it was a very general lifestyle box. And what I learned from— well, actually, it was a wonderful experience because I went through all the training, I learned a ton. I hired a VA to do the tech because that was completely beyond me. And I have an amazing VA that I actually got from someone in the group who also uses her and recommended her. So that was a great thing. And about a year into that, I actually ordered a book box from one of the big book box companies. I'm not going to say their name, but you know, just one of the bigger, they have thousands and thousands of people and they're really popular.

Did you do that just because you're a, you're a book junkie and you wanted to see, or were you like researching? Like what?

Yeah. Well, once you're in the subscription world, you start kind of noticing more. So like now I have a candle subscription, a tea subscription. I have too many subscriptions of my own that I subscribe to, but I love all of them now. And so then I was like, well, I'm— I've always been a book nerd my entire life. I grew up reading. And so I was like, why not try a book box? That sounds really fun. Like a subscription box every month that comes with book and gifts and stuff. And I tried one and I was like so disappointed in it. It was just like, it was cheap. It was junk. Everything just kind of went in the donation pile. And it was just the— you know, the book was fine, but the The whole experience was just blah, lacking. Yeah, it was. And the gifts were just kind of thrown into the box and they were really cheap. You know, you could just tell it was just junk and it was not nicely curated in my opinion. But I'm kind of a perfectionist. I'm an Enneagram 9. So I mean, I'm— yes, 1 or 9, I can't remember, whichever one is the perfectionist one, that's me. So I— and so then I kept— so then I kept ordering different book boxes to find one that I liked. And I could never find one that I really enjoyed. And And I'm very picky. So I was like, maybe I should just start one. And I like to read classics. I've always read classic books since I was a kid. It's kind of like a little passion, but I always want to read more, more classic books. And sometimes when you have the newest, like bestseller sitting on your nightstand, you're not always going to pick up like the Charles Dickens and read it because it's 700 pages. And so I was like, wouldn't it be fun to have like a classic book box where it would help you kind of read through those really awesome novels that we all know about? We know the stories, but maybe we haven't actually read them. So as you know, once you get an idea in your head, you kind of become obsessed. And so I ended up launching that one really quickly because I had already gone through all of that with my first box, with the Launch Your Box training. And I was in, at some point in there, I joined the OG Scale Your Box thing as well. So I was just like constantly immersed in all the training. So I launched that one really quickly and I did it. I didn't think it would be that big of a deal. I just did 50 for my first box. And this was in August of, 2021. And then I started a whole separate Instagram because my wildflower people were a completely different audience than my book people. Like they don't want to, you know, they might enjoy a pretty picture, but they are not really the audience that I wanted to target. And I thought it would be kind of interesting to start an entire social media from scratch and just see how far I could get with organic marketing. And you know, this is the stuff we do for fun when we're—

I love that you said it might be interesting just to start social media from scratch. Nobody would say that, Katie. Not one person would say, oh, just for fun, I'm going to start my social media from scratch. So I love, I love your journey here because you had a successful subscription box. And, um, but as you went through Launch Your Box, you were seeing the niches, right? Like we always say, the riches are in the niches. And so people were niching down and they were becoming successful. You really saw this niche as something personal. You wanted to create a really great experience for someone like you that was the book nerd, as you say, for classic books. And I really want them, I want our listeners to understand what you created, because it's more than just a box and it was way more than just a book in a box. Tell them about the box itself and how you create this really upscale experience for not only the subscriber, but the reader as they're going through the book.

Yeah. Okay. So the Literary Book Club, it's a, I call it a luxury subscription box because it's more on the expensive end. And there's kind of two parts. One part is that instead of just doing a book, we do a collectible edition of a classic. Usually these are really expensive books. You know, we do some leather bounds, we do some children's. These are beautiful books. They usually have gilt-edged pages and ribbon bookmarks and all the fancy things that you can get. So books that you want to have on your shelf forever. So that's kind of like a big part of the box. And the second part is that we do the gifts wrapped with page numbers on them so that you open them as you read the book. And then we always have one gift to open at the end when you're finished. So extra motivation to get through the book are the little gifts. And then also one gift at the end to make sure that when you you get to the end, you have like a special bonus, like, hey, you finished and you get to open a gift. So it's really— and we call it Experience the Classics, is like our little tagline, because you really get to open the gift when you get to the page, and you get a gift at the end. And then, you know, we do all sorts of fun little things like a while-you-read gift that might be a little cocktail mix or a tea. So it's really a fun experience. We wanted to make it not just you get a box, you open all the— you know, you open it and everything's there. It's really— I mean, I'm not necessarily recommend wrapping everything in your box because it's a ton of work, but for our theme And it works, but it's definitely, it adds a lot of work to it, but it makes it really special. And you feel like you're getting gifts to yourself. And it's just a really cool experience.

I love the experience. And if you, if you're trying to visualize what Katie's talking about, so she would have these gifts and they might be wrapped in tissue paper or wrapping paper. They would have a label on it that says open at page 17, open at page 211, open at page whatever. And so this box was like, the book was there, but then you're like, oh, I gotta start reading because I can't wait to get to page 17. I can't wait to get to page 211. So it wasn't like a one and done, like you open the box, you have the unboxing experience, and then, oh, okay, this is what I got, move on. She did a lot of things with her box, and that's what I want to break down for you guys today. I want you to think about what you have in your subscription boxes and how can you, one, create an experience. So she's created this experience of reading when you open the box. So it's not just about the stuff, but it's about going through this book. She's also created this sense of consuming what was in her box. If you guys are in Launch Your Box, you know that I say they've got to consume the contents. They've got to consume the contents of the box or it's just going to sit there and stack up and then they're going to want to cancel. So she created a way for people to be encouraged to consume the contents, not only the book, but then the gifts. So like, okay, I got my book, I got to start reading so I can open the first gift. So this, this experience is not a one and done. This experience is lasting for the length of the book and she's encouraging you to consume that book. So if you read it, you're going to stay a subscriber. If you follow the page gifts, you're going to stay a subscriber. If you get to the end of the book, there's a special gift. So that means you're finished and you've consumed the whole box and you're ready for the next one to show up. So I want you to think about that experience that you're creating for your subscriber as you're curating the box. So we launched this thing. You said you did it quick. You had 50 boxes. You sold out pretty quickly. I I remember opening your box inside the membership during one of our monthly box openings. And you know, I'm not a, I'm not a book junkie, but I have a book junkie on staff and she was like glued to the window as I was like opening your, your box. And so tell us how the subscription started to grow.

Well, I actually used your preorder strategy when I started. I was like, you know, I'm really just doing this for myself for fun, which takes a lot of the pressure off. You know, my other business is really stressful, so I was just kind of like, okay, I'll just throw this up as a preorder. And I actually ended up doing it a little too early. Like, I opened it up in May or June or something, and then I was like, that was kind of a long time to make those guys wait for their boxes. But I didn't think they would sell out so quickly. And then I got on Instagram, and there's kind of this really cool Instagram community called Bookstagram, and it's really all book nerds. And so I just started an Instagram under the— my book club name, the Literary Book Club Box, I think is our Instagram name. And I just started posting, hey, coming soon, luxury book box. And then I would take little like preview pictures and, you know, and it started to grow and grow. And then I ended up selling the 50 boxes like fairly quickly. And now I can't remember how quickly it was, but they were sold out. Um, and it was really fun and we shipped those. And then the October one, we had a lot more demand for it than I had originally. I think I had ordered maybe like 80 for the October box. At the time we were doing it bimonthly. We've switched to quarterly now. But, and so then I had ordered maybe, I don't know, 25, 30 extras, so it's gonna be 80. And then we had like, all of a sudden, um, we had a couple people open the box. I had paid one, um, like YouTube influencer to open it, and then I had another one that did it just for the box. And then once people saw it open and they saw what was in all the little wrapped gifts and how nice quality the gifts were Then we had the waitlist up and we got a lot more interest, so I ended up ordering more. And I think we went to like 120 in October, and then we decided to do a Christmas box, a special edition one-time Christmas box in addition to our December box that they could order. And we ended up selling like 200 of those. It snowballed very quickly. It got to be like, oh my gosh, we better like figure out what we're doing here, because all of a sudden this went from like a side project to being you know, double what Wildflower Club was after a year. Yeah, because of the niche, I think. Yeah, you know, because you're able to find your perfect person, right? Exactly. And the biggest thing that I found was that my community was so much more engaged with my book box. Like, they would talk to me and they'd be like, oh my gosh, I love that, Griff, that wrapping paper is so cute, and oh, this book. And they would really engage and we would talk, and it was like we were all friends. And with the other club, it's like they love the box, but there was really no engagement because it was so general. It was just a lifestyle box. It was fun to get, but there just wasn't a lot to discuss. You know, when it's just a general box, it's great. It's like luxury stuff and you love it, but then you, you use it and you move on with your life. And it was kind of fun to all of a sudden have this like community of book people all freaking out over the same book box. And it became, and it was fun for me to engage and get that feedback and A lot of feedback, and so it was really fun to get that. And we have like a private Facebook group for our box too, so like members can join and they get like a 10% off code for Marketplace stuff and kind of a little private group. But Instagram— I have, you know, followers on Facebook too, but Instagram is kind of the big one for this box. And so we've grown to about 2,500 followers on Instagram, which with the algorithms of the day, I'm like, wow, that Yes, that was, that was fun to do that. And so it's been fun. It's been fun to have a community of people that are really engaged in your box. Like, I know your followers are really engaged in your monogram box. And yet that's, you know, your niche thing, and it was fun to have that for us. And so it kind of like— and as my— I became, you know, I'm kind of obsessed with it now. Like, I love to read the books, pick up the gifts, talk to the people, show the gifts, and it's just really fun because I'm— it's something that I'm passionate about, and then it's something that they're really passionate about too. So I think that's kind of the beauty of a niche box when it's something that you're in love with.

Wait, you mentioned very briefly that you started bimonthly and then you changed it to quarterly. So talk to me about why the change came about and how you did that with your subscribers, because I know there's people listening right now that want to make a change. Maybe they're quarterly and want to go to monthly, maybe they're monthly and want to go to quarterly or bimonthly. So talk to us about what prompted that change and then how you transitioned your existing subscribers into the change.

Mm-hmm. Um, well, by— we started bimonthly, which was good. Um, part of it was that we have a lot of labor shortages where I'm at. I'm in Montana in like a very touristy town and it's the housing costs, costs have skyrocketed here and it's made a huge labor shortage for everyone too. So that was kind of part of it. I was like, man, I can't find help. And I'm packing at the time, I was packing 2 boxes every other month by myself for the most part. I sometimes I recruit my husband to come in and help me when I'm desperate, but it's usually just me doing everything. And so then also a little bit of the feedback that I was getting was that the classics take longer to get through, which, which I knew, but you know, I didn't really know how long my audience was going to take to get through it. And so got a little, like, I didn't want the boxes to stack up because they're expensive boxes and I did not want them to not be able to consume it by the time, because then you start to feel guilty. You're like, I haven't read the first book. I just can't get through these classics and they're piling up. And I did not want that feeling at all. And so then for those two reasons, one, it would be easier for me to plan out the boxes because they do take quite a bit of planning with the page numbers and all that, and the wrapping for each one. It takes a little longer to pack than a normal box, a lot longer to pack than my other box. And we work with small businesses, which gives them more time to make things too. And then it would give the reader more time to get through a classic book by the time they got the next one. And so we ended up just kind of going for it in, um, 2022. Like, what year is it? I don't even know, right? I have no idea. The last 2 years, I don't even know what's going on. It's been so crazy. But yeah, so then we just, we just kind of went for it. We sent an email, said, hey, instead of getting a box in February, you're going to get it in March, and we're going to switch to quarterly. And people were thrilled. They were like, great, it makes it affordable because it's a more expensive box to get it only 4 times a year, and it makes it so you can get through each classic and really use all your gifts and consume it all. In time for the next one. And we felt kind of a huge sigh of relief because our box is so detailed. You know, it wasn't hard to pack Wildflower Club because I didn't wrap things. They just, they went into the box. I mean, it was curated, but it wasn't individually wrapped. And this box takes so much more time and planning. I mean, we wax seal the envelopes, like everything's very detailed and super luxury. And so it just takes more time. So I was relieved. And so far people have been really liking it and it gives us a little flexibility too with shipping and Yeah, shortages, things a little bit easier for you.

I know you just got back from a vacation. So being able to go on vacation and not stress about what you have to constantly get out the door. And I think that's important. I think it's an important lesson to talk about today because when we build these businesses, ultimately we need to build them around our life. And sometimes that doesn't look like monthly or bimonthly, but sometimes that's quarterly. And with you having, you know, the labor shortages where you live, and you having to physically do all of it yourself, that may change later on. But right now that works for you and it worked for your customer and you were able to move them over and they didn't have, they didn't have any hiccups in their subscription. You were able to take care of that on the backend for them. So there didn't create any buffer or barrier for them to just switch over, which I think is great. Anytime we as business owners can remove barriers for our customers, just make it easy for them to be a part of our subscription. That's what we should do. So whether that's an upgrade, upgrade or a switch or whatever that is, if we don't have to require them to go in and physically do anything, we're removing a huge barrier. I know it seems like a small thing, but to people that are busy, like, it's a big deal to have to like stop what you're doing and go do something when you've already been automatically, you know, it's automatically been coming out of your account and now you have to do something. It's a barrier and it will cause churn and it will cause a lot of heartache for you. So if you can do it on the back end and then it doesn't skip a beat. Your customers are happy, you're happy, and you can just keep moving forward. So I love that. I love the way that you did that, not only for you but for your customers too.

And it allowed us to do— if we do want to do a Christmas box or Halloween box or any other like special one-time boxes, because when we were doing 6 and then adding those in, it became a lot. Now we're doing 4, we can add those in. And because I think over Christmas we packed like 500 boxes, and it was just me and my husband, and we were so frazzled by the end of it that we were like, oh my gosh, never again. Like, we have to like figure this out a little bit better. And so it was, um, it was crazy. But yeah, so I think it allows— the people love the special one-time boxes. We actually make those even more luxe than the monthly. We make them bigger, better, and those are really fun. They're really special, like for Christmas and stuff. So that's been a fun thing to do too.

Yeah, so now you're transitioning out of the Wildflower Club. How did that go? Tell us how you kind of shut that subscription down so that you could focus solely on the book, the literary book club.

The business side of it, Wildflower Paper Company, we're still functional, we still sell all of our stuff, but a lot of that that I do is wholesale. But the box itself, you know, we just kind of phased it out. We did February was going to be our last box, we sent out an email, we let people know. That just because of labor shortages, and we just couldn't continue to do both because it was becoming so much planning to plan two different boxes. And I'm such a perfectionist that I just didn't want to let one slip while I did the other one. And so it worked out good, you know, when we did Wildflower Club again, people love the one-time, they love the special edition Christmas boxes and the Mother's Day boxes. And so, you know, we may still do that down the road if I can find some help, but But people were sad and I was sad too. It was kind of my baby, but it was also sort of my pandemic baby. And not everything that starts during the pandemic is always something that can last forever. It was perfect at the time. It took the place of art fairs and markets that we weren't able to do for a while. And I learned, it was everything I learned on, you know, and hopefully in a good way that, you know, learned about boxes and shortages and inserts and shipping and oh my gosh, so many things and crazy things that happen to you. And in the year that I've packed all these boxes, I've only forgot to put an item in one time. That was a nightmare when I did it. And then I had to ship all those things out separately. And I was like, oh my gosh, that was— it only happened once, but it was horrible.

I think that, I think the best, the best thing about it is that when you start a subscription box, You know that it's the same tactics, it's the same strategies, it's the same feel to do it again. And that's— you just repeated that with a different niche. So anybody that's working through this, maybe they felt stuck or stagnant with their existing box. Maybe we need to go deeper into a niche. Maybe it's not your passion, what you're doing. Maybe there's something else out there. And if you've done it once, you can repeat that. And that's the best thing is that once you learn the foundations of how to do this, you can do this over and over again. We could— any of us could go go start another box in a different niche with different things. Not that any of us want to go start a new social media for, for fun like you do, but, um, we could because we're learning foundations of the subscription box business and it's just about rinsing and repeating it, um, in a different space, in a different area. And I love the way that you do that. So now we're over how many? 230 boxes for the Book Box.

Is that right? March we shipped about 230 boxes out and We're gonna keep it kind of small this year. We're gonna grow, you know, I think that at the end of the year I have it slated for like 375 boxes.

So that's good growth.

Yeah, I thought— I mean, I don't want to do more than I can handle. I'm still trying to hire and find help, and so it's— I'm kind of in that like, okay, I could do this much myself and maybe I can grow a little bit. But yeah, it's— that's a good number. I wanted to get there because I'm starting to work more on trying to make a few more of my things, and it's just It's easier to do that when you have a slightly larger number of subscribers to manufacture something just for your box. I don't really know what I do if it's closed or open, but I, I order a limited number of boxes and then when they're gone, we close it down and put up the waitlist.

That would be closed. That would be a closed model. Yep. Because you're not constantly adding in, you're just adding them when you're choosing to. You're, you're controlling the growth of your business.

Yeah. And so when they're sold out, like March sold out, and so we put up the waitlist and then we'll wait until we kind of get more of the June box stuff together.

All right, Katie. So we have listeners, they're in all stages of their subscription box journey. And when someone's here and they're, they're wanting to get started, but they're just, they're scared, they're holding themselves back. What advice would you give to them to just get going on their subscription box?

Well, if you're not already in Launch Box, you gotta join it because it's, it gives you the framework to do these things. And when you're lost and you forget, you can go back. And I mean, I've watched the training videos over and over again. Luckily I have a lot of like monotonous wrapping and things to do for this box, so I just sit and watch your videos. So I'm like always training and I love to learn. I'm a lifelong learner like you. And so I just recommend that because you need the framework and you need the support of people that don't think you're crazy when you want to have a book box or a guinea pig box or, you know, a dentist, female dentist box, or like any of the gals in there. Because like you say, your friends and family are not going to get it. I mean, you need people that maybe that's not their same box idea, but they want to do their own box. And so they get it, and they get that it can be cool and it can be successful. And don't be afraid to shift, you know. It's— sometimes it's hard. It was, you know, it's hard to shift. And sometimes you're like, have to admit that you've been doing it wrong, and you got to fix what you've been doing wrong, or you got to work on certain areas that maybe aren't as fun, like hiring. Hiring is not very fun for me. I'm having a hard time with it, but I'm trying. I wrote a job description. I did hire a bookkeeper and and that's been life-saving. So don't be afraid to fail. Don't be afraid to shift. You know, surround yourself with a good community and then just go for it. And you can start really small. I started with 50 boxes for the book club because I didn't want to just start with 500 and then, oh my gosh, I have 500 books in my house that I can't sell, you know. It's okay to start small and then you can go— always grow from there. Yep.

Katie, if we've got fellow book nerds listening to us today, where can they find you?

Yeah, theliterarybookclub.com is our website, and then on Instagram we're The Literary Book Club Box. Awesome.

And, and like Katie said, just come join us inside Launch Your Box. You can head over to my website launchyourbox.com. You'll find out more information there. Katie, thank you so much for sharing your subscription box journey with me today, and I know it's helped and inspired so many others.

Thank you, Sarah.

If the idea of creating a subscription box is swirling around in your head, I encourage you to head over to launchyourboxwithsarah.com, get on our waitlist, and grab some of our free downloads to help you get started. That's launchyourboxwithsarah.com.