ELEMENTS POLL 📚Use the comments to thumb up which elements are most important to you 🌠 (I usually do polls on Instagram which helps shape my content: instagram.com/wandernessbooks/)
The hardback design is 100% the most important to me, has to be something beautifully hiding underneath! Otherwise they might as well make them paperbacks
re: better picks in 2021-2022-- yes! I noticed a sharp decline in 2023, and then a continued decline in 2024 (I canceled all my subs) BUT I read a lot of books and am generally finding a decline in a publishing quality as a whole. one major factor, I think, is all the senior editors and staff who left during lockdown and did not return. there was a delay while the projects they worked on were still being published, but now we're seeing more of the effects of not having new senior staff ready to fill those positions. I am genuinely a little worried that because they are now sourcing more books from fanfic and tiktok *and people have shown how willing they are to buy multiple pretty copies that went through minimal or no editing* that publishing will learn the wrong lessons and continue to invest in marketing and fancy edges and to de-value editing. that said, FL in particular seems to have developed relationships with specific companies. by doing Hodder/Harper 50% of the time (in their adult box, anyway) they don't have as diverse picks in general. and it seems like an unwillingness to go out and find the best/obscure books that their audience will love.
I love the foiled endpapers on the fairyloot ones, that’s one of my favourite things. I 100% agree about the naked hardcovers of mistress of lies and fathomfolk, they were perfection. I just dislike how the Illumicrate ones are usually just a colour change on the jacket that doesn’t look as good as the original. I love their evernight subscription because the covers are always soo much better than the originals
Fairyloot have really stepped their endpapers up this year! I do think that IC are more restricted by the publishers they usually partner with, but even more so this year
I agree about being disappointed with the picks this year. Already canceled the FL Romantasy and if Illumicrate didn't have such a great skip policy, might cancel that as well. I have read some of the picks and they were fine but nothing has gotten me excited to read so they're just piling up. The rumored ones for next year though are giving me a little more hope.
FL DOTMG was what got me into special edition books - bought that one for way too much money but it is one of my prized posessions now. I *love* the edges sm. 🥺 so hard to choose but I’d say the endpapers are my fave - they can tell a story by themselves and the foiling there doesn’t get as damaged as when it is on the naked hardback. I do love full art naked hardbacks just as much.
Loved this!! Newish sub here and I absolutely love you and your channel. The best RUclipsr I’ve watched, you’re just authentic and can’t wait for your videos.
Dear Ness, when I started to get interested in book subscriptions, I found your channel and I chose my subs because of your videos. Your taste really speaks to me 🫶🏻 Bonus point: I‘m from austria and I love your british english ❤
I get a few subscriptions at the moment - Illumicrate, Everight, Locked Library, Page & Wick, The Butterfly Book Club - but I know that next year some of them will be cut just because the books that they're including aren't much of a mixture, or it doesn't seem to have been this year. But warring with that is the fact that the books are so pretty and I just love looking at them! Although I am going to make a conscious effort to use the skip features more ruthlessly
I love your picks! The scenes from the Witch King happen right away in the first few chapters and I had so much fun reading and then looking at the art, wonderful! Great video!!!
I agree with you about the picks being less desirable. I've seen predictions about what the upcoming fairyloot books will be, and there's very few I'm excited for. Where I feel like there used to be so many. I was wondering if it was a market change as well.
Redesigns are my favourite. I think they make an edition super special when done well. Evernight for example, I never skip because I’m just so excited to see what they created. 🎨 Full cover art on the naked is another fav customisation for me. Illumicrate are killing the game with all their subs on this front. Their artists, the landscapes are SO PRETTY. It’s elevated their Afterlight sub too. 💕 Edges are probably the thing I’m least bothered about. I think we’ve been so spoilt by the incredible things they can do regularly now. But I was a big fan of the rich colours of solid, ombre and simple stencilled edges. 🤷🏻♀️
The book I love the most from FairyLoot has solid edges (and I love good edges haha). I fell in love with the One Dark Window SE because of the art of the reversible dust jacket and the endpapers. I love that the art is matching (and it's incredibly beautiful). Book 1 and 2 are the SE I treasure the most. ❤️
I always take the dust jacket off to look at the naked hardcover. But I will say if the edges aren’t on point, I don’t want it!!! I have fallen in love with the end paper art this year, especially with my Fairyloot books.
❤ loved the sprayed edges of hurricane wars and song of silver flame like night. The redesign cover from strange the dreamer are also gorgous as are the priory of the orange tree and i loved of Jade and dragons for the unexpected hardcover and sprayed edge and i loved the cover Art of wren in the holly librairy becaus you know, librairy😂
As someone who isn't all that into romantasy or cozy fantasy I'm going to blame the lack of desirable picks (for me personally) on what's popular in publishing at the moment. I also much prefer a full color printed hardback, except when they go all out with the foiling, like for Amina al-Sirafi, or as you showed, Curse of Saints
I really want some of those re-design covers (Crimson Moth, Prisoner's Throne, Deathless) but man I am such a picky reader that my money would be wasted ): Thanks for showing your unboxings and collections!
For me the naked hardback is definitely what i give more importance to and thats why i love illumicrate. I started watching (your) special edition unboxings middle of last year and fathomfolk was the first time i bought any subscription books, i just fell completely in love with it. About the rest of the elements for me i mostly care about how cohesive they are (sprayed edges are becoming pretty common now i think). With all this in mind, this is why i subscribed to illumicrate immediately after i got a job 😂 i also love how diverse their picks are, i feel like fairyloot is always kind of the same type of book. Yes they have been doing so many redesigned covers but honestly that doesnt really bother me if the cover is still pretty 😅 (and the rest is cohesive) like Until We Shatter! Loved that edition too
I'm so pleased you're happy with your subscription 🥰 I've always liked Illumicrate more as a company and found that their customer service is better than Fairyloot, which is why keeping it over the Fairyloot YA box was a simple question for me :)
I wasn't sure if I would like In the Lives of Puppets before I read it, but it actually was really good! It was definitely a bit slow in parts, but I fell in love with the characters completely. The humor in the book was just right for me which can be sort of a rare find and it was a breathe of fresh air. I'm really excited now to read some of TJ Klunes other books! I think part of the reason I connected so strongly to the book was the main character read to me as a clear representation of autism and I saw so much of myself and my son in them. I'm disapointed as it seems Klune had other plans of things to add for this character but the beta readers he had didn't feel it was a good idea. I guess we'll never really know if they were right or not, but as is I think its still a really fun story. Its definitely not my prefered style so I think if I didn't fall in love with the humor or characters I wouldn't have liked it nearly as much but something about it just clicked and worked for me.
I'm so pleased you enjoyed it! I don't think TJ Klunes style is for me, but I definitely would read it if I started getting through a chunk of my TBR (unlikely 😂)
Out of all the edition I've seen for Divine Rivals, I think I prefer Fairyloots the most. Even the UK editions of that duology is better than the US IMO. Although the actual story was a bit meh for me. It wasn't long enough I think and glossed over things. I think The Crimson Moth was my favorite over all that I got from them. It caused a bit of confusion with the US subscribers because of the random name change of the book. I have the US Owlrate Edition with the Heartless Hunter name on it too. I really loved the special edition for The Last Tale of the Flower Bride too. I was just starting my obsession with collecting special edition books when that came out.
The reason objects that should be straight on the edges could be humidity. And especially since you live in UK, that's most probably the case. Lowering humidity would be good for books condition in general, there are quite cheap humidity absorbers for a few pounds out there. Sorry, I'm not telling you what to do, I'm just getting excited when I know something about books 😅🫣
I really don't like character art on any book or bookish items - they artist's perception of the character never fits mine, and even on the rare occasion they do, usually the style is one I don't enjoy. Whereas a landscape can be in any style and I feel like ok cool that explains things better
I used to be able to have a clear picture of characters in my head but now it's like I've lost the ability to picture anything, so I like looking at character art to give my brain something to anchor to, if that makes sense? But landscapes are always my favourite!
I actually really love when the edges match the cover, I find the cohesiveness really pleasing! I would say my most important criteria would be the covers: both the dustjacket and the case cover. But when it comes to dustjackets I really really love when one side is a recolour of the standard cover and one side is a redesign! I personally don't like when one side is a redesign and one side is just artwork. Also not a huge fan of the cartoony character illustrations. I'm with you - give me a good landscape or architecture or typography or something! Another pet peeve I have is when the case cover doesn't have any book info on it anywhere, like with Illumicrate's TJ Klune books, they're all art and no book title or author name or anything to make it identifiable on the shelf. I think overall if I had to choose one thing to be most important to me it would just be cohesiveness as a whole. Even if a book has some elements I'm not a huge fan of, as long as it's cohesive I won't mind so much. One of my absolute favourites recently was Fairyloot's October Adult book "Sorcery and Small Magics" by Maiga Doocy. The recolour was PHENOMENAL, and the redesigned cover on the opposite side of the dustjacket is lovely as well. But the recolour really brings a whole new life to it and gave them such a stunning palette to design the rest of the book around. The foiling on the case cover is beautiful, the edges are *stunning* and so whimsical and fun, the foiled endpapers are great. Only thing it's missing is a signature but honestly the rest of the book is so incredibly beautiful it gets a pass from me.
![Blox Fruits Dragon Rework Update [Full Stream]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EqDAp8udhm0/mqdefault.jpg)
ELEMENTS POLL 📚Use the comments to thumb up which elements are most important to you 🌠 (I usually do polls on Instagram which helps shape my content: instagram.com/wandernessbooks/)
Hand signed by the author
Endpaper art
Foiled endpaper art
Foiled naked hardcover design
Full art naked hardcover
The hardback design is 100% the most important to me, has to be something beautifully hiding underneath! Otherwise they might as well make them paperbacks
It's the most important part when you are reading for sure!
re: better picks in 2021-2022--
yes! I noticed a sharp decline in 2023, and then a continued decline in 2024 (I canceled all my subs)
BUT I read a lot of books and am generally finding a decline in a publishing quality as a whole. one major factor, I think, is all the senior editors and staff who left during lockdown and did not return. there was a delay while the projects they worked on were still being published, but now we're seeing more of the effects of not having new senior staff ready to fill those positions.
I am genuinely a little worried that because they are now sourcing more books from fanfic and tiktok *and people have shown how willing they are to buy multiple pretty copies that went through minimal or no editing* that publishing will learn the wrong lessons and continue to invest in marketing and fancy edges and to de-value editing.
that said, FL in particular seems to have developed relationships with specific companies. by doing Hodder/Harper 50% of the time (in their adult box, anyway) they don't have as diverse picks in general. and it seems like an unwillingness to go out and find the best/obscure books that their audience will love.
I love the foiled endpapers on the fairyloot ones, that’s one of my favourite things. I 100% agree about the naked hardcovers of mistress of lies and fathomfolk, they were perfection. I just dislike how the Illumicrate ones are usually just a colour change on the jacket that doesn’t look as good as the original. I love their evernight subscription because the covers are always soo much better than the originals
Fairyloot have really stepped their endpapers up this year! I do think that IC are more restricted by the publishers they usually partner with, but even more so this year
I agree about being disappointed with the picks this year. Already canceled the FL Romantasy and if Illumicrate didn't have such a great skip policy, might cancel that as well. I have read some of the picks and they were fine but nothing has gotten me excited to read so they're just piling up. The rumored ones for next year though are giving me a little more hope.
I'm thinking of starting to skip IC, even though I've never done that before!
@ I skipped a lot this year and had no regrets so far. Feel less cluttered too, so definitely recommend it.
I think I'm going to skip December and February
FL DOTMG was what got me into special edition books - bought that one for way too much money but it is one of my prized posessions now. I *love* the edges sm. 🥺 so hard to choose but I’d say the endpapers are my fave - they can tell a story by themselves and the foiling there doesn’t get as damaged as when it is on the naked hardback. I do love full art naked hardbacks just as much.
Loved this!! Newish sub here and I absolutely love you and your channel. The best RUclipsr I’ve watched, you’re just authentic and can’t wait for your videos.
I love it when the edges match both the naked hard cover and the dust jacket 🎀
The FairyLoot romantasy box has been exceptionally good at that!
Dear Ness, when I started to get interested in book subscriptions, I found your channel and I chose my subs because of your videos. Your taste really speaks to me 🫶🏻
Bonus point: I‘m from austria and I love your british english ❤
I think the endpapers are most important for me because I love when a scene pulls me in. I expected you to pick to cage a god for your edges.
I love the stained glass edges but this category was tough!
I’m obsessed with gorgeous stenciled edges!
I get a few subscriptions at the moment - Illumicrate, Everight, Locked Library, Page & Wick, The Butterfly Book Club - but I know that next year some of them will be cut just because the books that they're including aren't much of a mixture, or it doesn't seem to have been this year. But warring with that is the fact that the books are so pretty and I just love looking at them! Although I am going to make a conscious effort to use the skip features more ruthlessly
I love your picks! The scenes from the Witch King happen right away in the first few chapters and I had so much fun reading and then looking at the art, wonderful!
Great video!!!
I agree with you about the picks being less desirable. I've seen predictions about what the upcoming fairyloot books will be, and there's very few I'm excited for. Where I feel like there used to be so many. I was wondering if it was a market change as well.
The first 3 months of illumicrate aren't promising for me either, definitely skipping February
Your special editions are so gorgeous and beautiful. I like all aspects of special editions. I can't pick a favourite.
I just hope the insides are as beautiful as the design!
Redesigns are my favourite. I think they make an edition super special when done well. Evernight for example, I never skip because I’m just so excited to see what they created. 🎨
Full cover art on the naked is another fav customisation for me. Illumicrate are killing the game with all their subs on this front. Their artists, the landscapes are SO PRETTY. It’s elevated their Afterlight sub too. 💕
Edges are probably the thing I’m least bothered about. I think we’ve been so spoilt by the incredible things they can do regularly now. But I was a big fan of the rich colours of solid, ombre and simple stencilled edges. 🤷🏻♀️
Agree with edges, we have been spoilt!!
Special editions are my special interest, so I'm all in for this video ❤️
The book I love the most from FairyLoot has solid edges (and I love good edges haha).
I fell in love with the One Dark Window SE because of the art of the reversible dust jacket and the endpapers. I love that the art is matching (and it's incredibly beautiful). Book 1 and 2 are the SE I treasure the most. ❤️
I really liked the SE of One Dark Window! I gave it away to someone who really wanted it and I've been tempted to repurchase
the ASID nakey is actually a reference to the book! it's her architecture project submission for the estate!
(not spoilers, that's synopsis info)
I always take the dust jacket off to look at the naked hardcover. But I will say if the edges aren’t on point, I don’t want it!!! I have fallen in love with the end paper art this year, especially with my Fairyloot books.
They've perfected endpapers this year!
Agree, the special editions are such gorgeous works of art! But financially I can’t get all the subscriptions when some are books I don’t want to read
❤ loved the sprayed edges of hurricane wars and song of silver flame like night. The redesign cover from strange the dreamer are also gorgous as are the priory of the orange tree and i loved of Jade and dragons for the unexpected hardcover and sprayed edge and i loved the cover Art of wren in the holly librairy becaus you know, librairy😂
Hurricane Wars and SOSFLN almost made it into this video!! They were the two I changed my mind on. I didn't get the Priorty books and I'm so sad
@Wanderness ❤️
As someone who isn't all that into romantasy or cozy fantasy I'm going to blame the lack of desirable picks (for me personally) on what's popular in publishing at the moment.
I also much prefer a full color printed hardback, except when they go all out with the foiling, like for Amina al-Sirafi, or as you showed, Curse of Saints
This is why I want to get the epic fantasy subscription from FL next year!
Omg, stained glass windows are my favorite too!
There's just something about them!
I really want some of those re-design covers (Crimson Moth, Prisoner's Throne, Deathless) but man I am such a picky reader that my money would be wasted ):
Thanks for showing your unboxings and collections!
I am always so jealous of your gorgeous editions
Don't be jealous of the money spent 😂
I’ve still not gotten off the Fairyloot waitlist! 😢
For me the naked hardback is definitely what i give more importance to and thats why i love illumicrate. I started watching (your) special edition unboxings middle of last year and fathomfolk was the first time i bought any subscription books, i just fell completely in love with it. About the rest of the elements for me i mostly care about how cohesive they are (sprayed edges are becoming pretty common now i think).
With all this in mind, this is why i subscribed to illumicrate immediately after i got a job 😂 i also love how diverse their picks are, i feel like fairyloot is always kind of the same type of book. Yes they have been doing so many redesigned covers but honestly that doesnt really bother me if the cover is still pretty 😅 (and the rest is cohesive) like Until We Shatter! Loved that edition too
I'm so pleased you're happy with your subscription 🥰 I've always liked Illumicrate more as a company and found that their customer service is better than Fairyloot, which is why keeping it over the Fairyloot YA box was a simple question for me :)
I wasn't sure if I would like In the Lives of Puppets before I read it, but it actually was really good! It was definitely a bit slow in parts, but I fell in love with the characters completely. The humor in the book was just right for me which can be sort of a rare find and it was a breathe of fresh air. I'm really excited now to read some of TJ Klunes other books! I think part of the reason I connected so strongly to the book was the main character read to me as a clear representation of autism and I saw so much of myself and my son in them. I'm disapointed as it seems Klune had other plans of things to add for this character but the beta readers he had didn't feel it was a good idea. I guess we'll never really know if they were right or not, but as is I think its still a really fun story. Its definitely not my prefered style so I think if I didn't fall in love with the humor or characters I wouldn't have liked it nearly as much but something about it just clicked and worked for me.
I'm so pleased you enjoyed it! I don't think TJ Klunes style is for me, but I definitely would read it if I started getting through a chunk of my TBR (unlikely 😂)
@@Wanderness Haha I know how that is for sure! My TBR definitely grows far faster than I can get through it 😅
@Wanderness my books look like they have never been read also.
Out of all the edition I've seen for Divine Rivals, I think I prefer Fairyloots the most. Even the UK editions of that duology is better than the US IMO. Although the actual story was a bit meh for me. It wasn't long enough I think and glossed over things. I think The Crimson Moth was my favorite over all that I got from them. It caused a bit of confusion with the US subscribers because of the random name change of the book. I have the US Owlrate Edition with the Heartless Hunter name on it too. I really loved the special edition for The Last Tale of the Flower Bride too. I was just starting my obsession with collecting special edition books when that came out.
I didn't know there was a name change! That's super confusing. I agree Fairyloot is the best Divine Rivals, I got the sequel too and I'm pleased I did
❤ 📚 ❤
The reason objects that should be straight on the edges could be humidity. And especially since you live in UK, that's most probably the case. Lowering humidity would be good for books condition in general, there are quite cheap humidity absorbers for a few pounds out there. Sorry, I'm not telling you what to do, I'm just getting excited when I know something about books 😅🫣
I really don't like character art on any book or bookish items - they artist's perception of the character never fits mine, and even on the rare occasion they do, usually the style is one I don't enjoy. Whereas a landscape can be in any style and I feel like ok cool that explains things better
I used to be able to have a clear picture of characters in my head but now it's like I've lost the ability to picture anything, so I like looking at character art to give my brain something to anchor to, if that makes sense? But landscapes are always my favourite!
I actually really love when the edges match the cover, I find the cohesiveness really pleasing! I would say my most important criteria would be the covers: both the dustjacket and the case cover. But when it comes to dustjackets I really really love when one side is a recolour of the standard cover and one side is a redesign! I personally don't like when one side is a redesign and one side is just artwork. Also not a huge fan of the cartoony character illustrations. I'm with you - give me a good landscape or architecture or typography or something! Another pet peeve I have is when the case cover doesn't have any book info on it anywhere, like with Illumicrate's TJ Klune books, they're all art and no book title or author name or anything to make it identifiable on the shelf.
I think overall if I had to choose one thing to be most important to me it would just be cohesiveness as a whole. Even if a book has some elements I'm not a huge fan of, as long as it's cohesive I won't mind so much.
One of my absolute favourites recently was Fairyloot's October Adult book "Sorcery and Small Magics" by Maiga Doocy. The recolour was PHENOMENAL, and the redesigned cover on the opposite side of the dustjacket is lovely as well. But the recolour really brings a whole new life to it and gave them such a stunning palette to design the rest of the book around. The foiling on the case cover is beautiful, the edges are *stunning* and so whimsical and fun, the foiled endpapers are great. Only thing it's missing is a signature but honestly the rest of the book is so incredibly beautiful it gets a pass from me.