Mystery Box Mysteries Revealed!

We are going to share some secrets today. Book Box secrets (and there will be April Cozy Mystery Box Spoilers, so hide your eyes when we get to that picture if you want to be surprised).

For our Cozy Mystery Book Box,  we center each month around a theme, or author (or some tangentially relatable thread between the books).  We try to have a hot newly released title in the mix. So how do we do this magic months in advance?  That is secret #1 we will be sharing.

We start in a digital book catalogue that a vast majority of publishers participate in. For this, we are looking for the featured new book for our August box.  We create search parameters that fit “cozy mystery”, select the publishers known for cozy mysteries, and select dates close to the shipping of our August box.  That way we get in a book that is less than 6 weeks old.  We then look at each title the search pulls up and start our juices flowing.  Is this an author with a wide variety of books that we can feature in a box? Is this a popular theme?  Have we done this theme or author recently?  Is this a new hardcover, or the paperback rerelease of a book?  WE choose two or three from that list and then start looking for relatively recent books with similar themes, locations, eras etc.  We especially focus on books and authors we have read (or have on our TBR and can have read by the month in question!)

This process happens over the course of a week or so, and the books or theme often change a few times before they are set. (When it comes to books it’s hard to choose!)

Next step is ordering the books, and estimating how many we will need.  This gets tricky and we sometimes have to make a re-order, or have a few extras. We are magical, but predicting the future is not one of our talents (unless it’s predicting how much you might love one of our staff picks!)

We hold all our upcoming books together as they arrive to the store (trying not to order too far in advance…. HA! It’s hard to contain that excitement)  We also use this spot in our storage room to collect all the little trinkets and goodies we add to the boxes.  We love sending goodies to our book friends.

 The week before boxes are due to go out, we write our little note to recipients about the books they are receiving.  We don’t want to give away too much, but we do love sharing our excitement for their new books.

{{{APRIL BOX SPOILERS BELOW}}}

Eventually it becomes PACKING DAY(S)!  Each box is lovingly created and hand packed.  Our packing material comes from our monthly book fliers. We shred and use the extras (REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE!) to create a little nest for our book friends.  Each box gets a bookmark (or a few, now that we have some custom book box bookmarks!), the books, the letter, the special goody, and that month’s Indie Next List.  Each box is sealed with our Monthly Book Box sticker, so our recipients can get all excited when they see it in their mail!

We love creating these boxes. And hope you’ve enjoyed this little peek into our process!

Happy Readings.