I can remember there used to be ads all the time…SELECT 10 FOR ONE PENNY!
I would read through the lists and think, “Gee, what a great deal!” and then read the fine print:
You must buy a minimum of 10 books/movies at special low prices for the next year. We will send you a book/movie every month…etc.
I can’t remember the last time I saw one of those ads. Do they still have those great lists of books/movies for that seemingly great deal?
Yeah. Google Columbia House
The one I join and quit and join again in a few years is the Quality Paperback Book Club. Six books, $6, + one more now @$4.99 and one at full price - you get some gimmick gift, really high quality books (hence the name :p), great selection, no obligation to ever buy another book. I usually get my eight books for about $25 and quit as soon as I get the first catalog. I used to stay joined up, but I always ended up buying too many books. Their catalogs are book crack.
They are a good way to bulk up a collection if you pay attention to the terms of the contract. If you don’t keep track of mailing back the monthly cards on time though, you can end up paying for a lot of stuff you don’t want. (This is how I explained it to my daughter many years back; don’t know if it still works the same way.)
For her it was any easy decision: she had few books (or was it CDs?) and wanted to get more for a little as possible. “Ninetiseven books for $12.74 and no more to pay ever!!! What a great deal!! Sign me up!”
“Now hold up there, library girl. Where are you getting the ‘no more ever’ part? You also have agreed to buy four more books at regular club prices in the following year, before you can quit. That’s four more at thirty-two, twelve (minimum) over the next year. And what are you going to do when you start getting a card each month telling you what they are going to send you (at your expense, of course) whether you want it or not unless you send the card back with the appropriate boxes checked?”
“Well, okay, I guess I won’t.”
“I didn’t say that. Let’s sit down and do the math. If you buy these leventy four for tenteen cents and these four at thirty-two twelve , you’ll have bought leventy eight books for almost $125. If you buy them from Amazon, you’ll pay $211 plus shipping and handling for anywhere from 16.40 to 1,232.88. So it’s obviously a better deal if you get in, fulfill your obligation and get out with out any mistakes. Can you do that?”
“I think so. And you and Mommy can help if I mess up, right?”
“That’s what our purpose in life is, hunny.”
apropos of nothing,
Joni Mitchell- Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter
No. This is book crack.
DfrntBreign, that’s a perfect way to explain it. I remember in the olden days, people would get trapped in those clubs and it almost seemed like indentured servitude, because they didn’t read the fine print, or they didn’t think about what they were getting into. I was in the Columbia club not so very long ago (late 80s/early 90s maybe), and bought some albums (on vinyl!) I probably wouldn’t have otherwise gotten, so it was worth it at the time.
singular1 QPB takes me back a few years. They had good titles, as I remember. Though I can’t vouch for the actual quality of the book – the binding, the cover, etc. but I imagine it was a trade paperback. I used to go to used bookstores all the time, and occasionally would pick up a book club edition. They were virtually identical to “normal” books, except maybe in a trade size, and had “book club edition” stamped on it somewhere.
I did the Columbia house thing, and one other CD club, back in the late 90s, because my whole family was late to the party on CD players. I was smart about it and still owe a good chunk of my physical CD collection to them.
I was wondering the same thing the other day. I never see book or record club ads anymore, and I wondered if eBay and Amazon had driven them out of business. I’ve joined several times over the years. It’s good to know they’re still around.
I always feel anachronistic for belonging to one of these things, and I know my 1980s/1990s “punk” credentials just fall to pieces when I admit it.
<long-winded details of how I use the club>
BMG Music Club is still going (I read online that BMG runs the Columbia House Club, too) and they have a DVD club with similar rules. Their “regular prices” are insane ($18.98 per CD) and shipping charges are pretty high ($2.79 per CD is the cheapest option), and you must buy some CDs at some point at the regular price to fulfill your side of the contract. Still, it’s not a bad deal if you play their game and have a number of CDs you’d like to purchase at any one time. It’s a horrible deal if you typically only want one or two CDs at a time (probably most people).
I joined with the “7 for free (plus shipping), buy one at regular prices, get 4 more for free (plus shipping)” deal years ago, and opted for e-mail notices of monthly selections and sales. Got my 7, turned down my first monthly selection, and waited for a “free shipping and handling” e-mail sale notice, which took a couple of weeks. Picked up my one “regular price” disc and got free shipping on it, then paid $2.79 shipping for my 4 free, closing out the terms of the original contract. Total cost: $49.67 for 12 CDs, or $4.14 apiece.
I remained a member, because I usually have a list of dozens of CDs I’d like to buy at any one time, and the online sales offer the best savings for bulk buys. Now, I just turn down my monthly selections, and wait for a “buy one at regular price, get unlimited free” sale, then buy 15 or more in one go, yielding per CD costs of around $4. People not likely to do regular bulk buys would do better to cancel after the original 7+1+4 deal is fulfilled, then rejoin when they’re ready to do a couple more such buys.
Their sales usually are of one of the following types: Buy one, get x free (with/without free shipping); Buy one, get unlimited free (with shipping); Each CD is at a reduced cost y (with/without free shipping); Free shipping only. The last is only useful in fulfilling the terms of the original contract, the third can yield decent deals if you hold out for free shipping and favorable y, the second is great for bulk buys, and the first is good with free shipping and x is > 3.
The sales are, of course, time-limited, usually only a day or two in length. I typically will keep my online cart filled with a large number of CDs, waiting for a sale, then hop over and finish my check-out only when a good sale comes through.
</long-winded>
Anyway. Probably not of much interest for folks who prefer more immediate gratification, or people who don’t feel compelled to own music (I imagine a Rhapsody-type subscription is a much better deal), but it’s been a great way for me to load up on newer pop/dance music and catalogue titles.
I’ve been a member of QPBC since, I think, 1981! I currently have 131 bonus points so I rule the earth! My biggest score was the complete Calvin and Hobbes FOR FREE. Like **Student Driver **says, you have to keep checking for the sales – a couple of days ago, all books were $9.99. Sometimes it’s buy 2, get 1 free; sometimes it’s double bonus points. I’ve gotten lots of good reference books.
Heh. Half of my reference-books library comes from my mom’s QPBC membership in the early 1980s, and she’s probably responsible for the fact that to this day I’ll happily curl up with a reference book and read for hours. (Or a Far Side collection, or business histories, or…)
I think she’s still a member, too. Don’t know how many bonus points she’d have, though.
Both book and record clubs are hurting badly these days.
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/3/like_netflix_but_not_popular_remember_columbia_house_
Direct Group owned most of the book clubs you’d be familiar with, including QPBC, History Book Club, Doubleday Book Club, and many others. They had earlier pared down many of the slower-selling clubs.
As the article implies, the Internet is killing book clubs in the U.S. Shipping costs and taxes on club material are so high that many times you can wind up spending more than buying the book locally. And these are sometimes lower-quality reprints of the originals. (The History Book Club does this extensively.)
I expect book clubs to die off within the next few years and record clubs will probably go before them.
Well, I’d better stop hoarding those bonus points, then. Phooey.
For at least awhile, back in the early 90s, you could play these things to your advantage and get A LOT of CDs for dirt cheap, if you were smart about it. My family joined one around 1990 when we got our first CD player and we ended up with about 1600 CDs within a couple of years. Before downloading, I didn’t know anyone who could touch our music collection.
I remember reading somewhere that these clubs mainly started up in order to legitimately mail people random items and then bill them for it if they didn’t send it back. Because apparently in the ‘old’ days it wasn’t uncommon for a business to mail you some item you never requested. And if you didn’t send it back within a certain amount of time they’d bill you for it whether you really wanted it or not. Anyone else hear anything like this or is it all a bunch of bull honkey?
I was in one of those clubs back in high school. Worked out well for me–the prices were good, the commitment was fairly small (four books over the next two years–wasn’t hard to fill), and I got a bunch of coupons and deals while I was with them. I got a few hardcovers for half of retail that way, found some stuff I never would have touched otherwise, and they also occasionally had bulk bargains.
I might see if they’re still around. I don’t get to the bookstore much and the local library blows.
Been nearly 20 years but IIRC we almost always got at least one random crappy CD that we didn’t ask for with any big order of CDs that we did ask for, and we would get them by themselves, out of the blue, a lot too. We always sent them back immediately after taking a few minutes to make fun of them, though, so we never had to pay. Also IIRC you had to pay for the crappy CD every once in awhile, but that was known up front and it still averaged out to a smokin’ deal.
I was in the Science Fiction Book Club from about 1970 into the 1990s. I’ve still got the books I bought for a penny when I signed up, almost four decades ago.
Oh my god.
My wife will hate you.
My bank account, more than anyone else, will hate you.
I, however, love you.
I stayed away from record clubs back in the 70s – they seemed a terrible deal: records sold for about 20% more than what you’d pay for them locally, and the stupid “negative refusal” situation, where you got a record shipped to you (their choice) if you didn’t return a card.
The one exception was the Record Club of America. They had great prices, reasonable shipping, and good come-ons. They often were cited by consumer authorities for their postage and handling fees (you’d sign up to get records free for just P&H and a small membership fee), but those fees were negligible – $1 for membership and 40 cents P&H (even back in the 70s, that was a good deal). Prices were usually lower than record stores, but they eventually went under.
My wife orders from QBC and the History Book Club; but I stick to Bookcloseouts.com (mentioned previously) or amazon.com in case I want a particular title.