Punters and Pushers

Posted by SB Sarah

https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2025/12/julia-quinn-launches-jq-editions-kickstarter-subscription-of-special-edition-historical-romances/

https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/?p=164537

Today on Instagram and Facebook, Julia Quinn announced the launch of JQ Editions, a historical romance special edition subscription service.

Per her announcement, the special editions will include “luxurious soft-touch covers, illustrated endpapers, and fabulous sprayed edges.”

(SPREDGES?! Everybody drink!)

Quinn will be selecting each title, and says in the introduction that some will be “brand new,” while others will be “recent gems, or classics of the modern genre.”

Per the caption, “Each and every title is hand-picked by Julia Quinn, and she works personally with illustrators to make sure that the art reflects the story and honors the author.”

When the Kickstarter goes live in January, folks will be able to purchase one- or two-year subscriptions, and those who are interested can sign up for the JQ Editions mailing list, or follow their social accounts on Facebook and Instagram.

I am fascinated by this announcement on several levels because it’s the full-speed collision of several major trends. There’s the Kickstarter part, the historical romance part, the special edition part – my brain is Jiffy Popping all over the place.

Let’s start with the Kickstarter of it all. Every year for the podcast Patreon, Amanda and I do predictions for the coming year, and another episode where we listen to our older predictions from the previous year to find out how accurate we were.

One of my predictions for 2026 was the continued rise of Kickstarter as as a major option for authors who are frustrated by the diminishing returns when self publishing, particularly as a platform exclusive, and by the diminishing returns of working with a publisher when shelf space continues to shrink and mass market, the format most associated with historical romance, died this year. When a publisher like Harlequin can’t meet the demand for paperbacks of Heated Rivalry, one of the greatest romance television adaptations of all time, and in the same year, “After the End,” an author collective Kickstarter, crossed $1.4 million in sales, it’s not difficult to understand the increasing appeal of Kickstarter.

As I learned in my interviews with Lucy Eden and Katee Robert (507. Romance Kickstarters) and with Oriana Leckert (620. Romance and Kickstarter) Kickstarter offers a greater percentage of money than other available options (short of setting up a mimeograph machine for publishing books, which would come with the added benefit of having That Smell we remember from school).

Oriana Leckert, who is the Head of Publishing at Kickstarter, said during our interview,

…I think two, two really, really key things that make Kickstarter very special for authors is that our cut is five percent.

Sarah: Yep.

Oriana: Five percent. Also we have Stripe, who processes our payments; they take three to four percent. Even so, you’re paying less than ten percent in fees, which is so much less than you’re paying to any other avenue through which you might sell your books

Another benefit to Kickstarter that I still think about: data. As Leckert explained it,

Kickstarter is in the business of giving you your audience…. [A]s we see the continued fracturing and dissolution of social platforms, as we watch these, like, you know, mercurial to malevolent executives with a flick of the wrist change their algorithm in a way that now that, like, you know, a hundred thousand strong audience that you’ve worked so hard for, you can no longer access, or not as effectively.

…If you run a Kickstarter campaign, first of all, during the campaign you get a tremendous amount of data about where your backers are, where they’re coming from, are they using desktop or mobile? What time of day are they backing? Which of your promotional avenues have reached them? And then afterward you get everybody’s email addresses! You get to send them surveys. You get to ask them all sorts of questions….

[H]olding onto those direct avenues to reach your readers is so much more important than ever. This is something that we can do for our authors that Amazon’s not going to give you.

Kickstarter is also an excellent way to test new ideas, as Katee Robert explained: “I’m going to be circling back to Kickstarter a lot in the future, just because it’s a very interesting platform and, and if it doesn’t fund, it doesn’t fund, and then you do something else.”

So that’s the Kickstarter part. But as I said, a subscription box of historical romance special editions is also dead center of an intersection of other major trends: special editions (obvs), Rrrrrrrromantasy market saturation, and the future of historical romance.

I’ve said many, many times, per the Bruce Springsteen Law of Publishing, “everything dies, baby, that’s a fact. But maybe everything that dies, someday comes back.” In other words, no genre ever dies. They come back in a different form. Like Pokémon. Just like how New Adult was Chick Lit re-invented for readers coming of age in a terrible economy instead of a good one, or how romantic suspense with military and law enforcement heroes, which used to be everywhere, seem to have given way to a mafia and unaffiliated special ops heroes. No genre dies, but it will evolve before it comes back.

The historical romance genre is not in terrific shape in terms of market strength, to put it mildly. But it’s not dead — the mass market paperback is dead, but not historical romance, even though it was most published in that trim size and at that price.

So how might the JQ Editions affect the state of historical romance? Could historical special editions reinvigorate the historical romance audience? Or will the audience for historical special editions be found with established historical romance readers who have deep ties to the genre, and to specific books?

Both, possibly?

First, special editions are, as the memes say, so hot right now, and have been for a few years. Moreover, readers on social media who are likely to be part of the special edition audience have been ‘rediscovering’ historical romances because the internal conflicts coupled with the external class structure produce a lot of yearning and pining. The new trend of “Who put all this pining in historical romance?” reader engagement only helps a project like JQ Editions. The same readers who adore special editions of much loved Rrrrrrrromantasy titles may also seek out special editions of historical romances that are still popular.

The thing about special editions, though: they’re more aesthetic than practical. No one is going to sit down with a special edition book with end papers, art, and spredges (drink!), and start reading while eating cheeze puffs. Cheeto dust + special edition = rage bait.

A special edition isn’t necessarily a reliable discovery mechanism, either: the goal of a special edition is to reach fans of the book with a unique artifact of that book’s popularity and virality. Which leads me back to audience.

The audience for a historical romance special edition would have to include historical romance readers, obviously. Many historical romance fans are collectors of romance as well – specific cover artists, models, or entire backlists for beloved authors. Historical romance is a older genre with books that have been favorites for literal decades. Some readers may be very excited to have unique art editions of their fave, simply because the special edition trend finally includes them. 

Attaching the artistic enhancements of a special edition to a book that has been a reader favorite for most of their adult lives? I hope Quinn picks some old favorites because if she’s picking books that have Big Reader History attached, the subscription Kickstarter could do very, very well. I’ll bet folding money, as my sister says, that there will be loud and ample calls for Kleypas editions, particularly Devil in Winter.

This may be a fusspot feature of my age and perspective, but personally, I want less stuff in my house, not more. So I haven’t been in the audience for special editions, and everything I say must be taken with a Volkswagen-sized grain of salt here. But even though I am pretty selective about stuff resides in my home, I am so, so curious to see which books are selected, and what they’ll look like, and how they’ll be decorated and styled. (Lol – that’s like a whole new job category, right: “book stylist.”)

Special editions are fandom artifacts, gorgeous representations of a specific book’s popularity at a moment in time. They also assign more visual cues to a three-dimensional book than mere cover and copy: the art and motifs on the cover or the spredges (drink!) visually communicates so much more about the story. And they’re usually gorgeous! Luscious paper, textured cover treatments, art and designs in lavish colors you can see from across the room – they’re meant to appeal to our senses and our experience with that particular story. Special edition treatment for historical romance could potentially aid in the evolution of the historical romance genre, especially if the titles included mix enduring favorites with titles that are part of historical romance’s evolution in progress.

A special edition has more opportunity to signal to a reader what’s inside, and it’s usually aimed at a reader who already knows that what’s inside is special to them. I am extremely curious to see what titles are included, and what they’ll look like.

What about you? Would you be interested in special editions of historical romances? Which one?! Are you interested in JQ Editions?

A | BN | K | AB

Bookish Notes shared a cover image and a screenshot of some marketing copy from the publisher about Eloisa James’ next book, The Last Lady B. 

The marketing copy includes:

POTENTIAL SUBSCRIPTION BOX PLACEMENT: THE LAST LADY B is being heavily considered to launch Bridgerton author Julia Quinn’s (IG: 520K, FB: 407K) new subscription box. This would include a beautiful, deluxe hardcover edition that would publish simultaneously with our edition! Since this would be the first book ever chosen for this new box, we would benefit from any publicity surrounding the launch in addition to our own publicity.

The original post also notes that this is a historical romance in first person:

This is the cover, if you’re curious:

Launching with a new historical romance (in first person – that’s kind of a big deal) from a very popular author in a special edition would be an interesting strategy for the first box, and aims to capture some of the groups I mentioned above: fans of an author, fans of historical in general, and possibly potential new historical readers. I know many folks who make buying decisions based on hating first person pov, so I can only assume there are an equal or greater number of people who make buying decisions based on adoring first person pov.

Seriously, this remains so fascinating for me. It’s like a bunch of things I think about all the time colliding in front of me. Thanks for coming along for the ride.

https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2025/12/julia-quinn-launches-jq-editions-kickstarter-subscription-of-special-edition-historical-romances/

https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/?p=164537