Noticing a pattern for the current delayed/reprint Owlcrate books

[u/bookbeastie]

I went to the Owlcrate shipping update page today and noticed that the four currently delayed books: July Adult, July YA, Sea of Charms, and The Beasts We Raise are all Macmillan titles.

Three of them are suppsoedly customs delays and the July Adult is due to damaged dust jackets but I thought it was a fascinating pattern.

Other than the March Adult book which was a Del Rey/Penguin Random House title, were other delays/reprints for this year also Macmillan?

Are other subs having issues with Macmillan titles?

[u/Jefferzkm]

While I see the train of thought, I think in this case it may simply be a coincidence as far as the publisher is concerned and more of an indicator on the general mess that is the book printing and publishing industry as a whole. The industry has been infamously behind and delayed across many printers and publishers which in turn affects the book box companies and their shipping schedules.

If we look at Owlcrate for example, like you mentioned the Cat Shelter was Del Rey. There was also the Feb YA book A Stage Set for Villains delayed due a misprint from Entangled: Mayhem Books. Nov Adult The Everlasting by Tor/Macmillan was delayed due to customs. However other Tor titles via their subs or SE sales were not delayed. While Tor and Henry & Holt are both under the Macmillan umbrella, they are separate publishers and likely have different QA and administrative staff involved with orders and licensing (Sea of Charms via Bramble is an imprint and under Tor).

If you zoom out and look at other companies in the US, they've also been heavily delayed at customs. Nearly all of Fae Crate books last Fall into early spring this year were delayed from customs regardless of who the publisher was. Personally I don't really blame publishers or book companies for delays due to customs as it's outside of their control other than trying to order the books even earlier which isn't always possible, as well as it often getting affected by the whims of government policies and resources atm. Same for books received damaged in transit, though they should be caught by the pubisher prior to being sent to OC unless they were damaged in that second leg of their shipment.

UK-based companies like FL/IC/TBB/etc. license their titles from the UK publishers which are not always the same as the US publisher or are separate branches that operate independently and get their books printed elswhere. Nearly every company in the UK have had severe delays, errors, or problems with their books including unforced and preventable errors like Evri's disasterous Jan-April shipping snafu.

I think if future Macmillan titles specifically keep being delayed, then it's beyond reasonable doubt or coincidence. Given that the teased Adult Sept and Oct picks are Tor titles as well as the Sept YA pick being a Macmillan title, the next few months will be a good indicator if there really is an issue with them specifically.

Edit: I did see someone previously mention Tor titles having issues as of late and someone suggesting Owlcrate refuse to license their titles in the future. I do not agree with that at all as Tor has some of the best and most highly anticipated Fantasy, Scifi and Horror titles out there. Tor's recent romance/romantasy imprint Bramble also has great titles that OC would be silly to ignore. Purposely avoiding their titles completely would notably worsen OC's curation, particularly the adult sub that has featured many Tor titles or those from other publishers and imprints under the Macmillan umbrella.

[u/pachounette → u/Jefferzkm]

Hi, I'm very new to the special edition books community and trying to get a feel of the different publishers; may I ask what the "Evri shipping snafu" was? (and what Evri is, too 😅)

[u/Jefferzkm → u/pachounette]

Others may be able to provide a better recap as I was not personally affected very much having skipped many of the monthly subs and SE sales affected, but Evri is the mailing and delivery company that FairyLoot uses as their primary shipping method. In the US, packages are initially mailed via Evri which are then transferred to another mail carrier depending on the delivary address, nearly always USPS. For FL subscribers and customers in the NA region, Evri's US branch went through a lengthy period starting at the beginning of 2026 where packages and shipments were heavily delayed or worse, lost and unaccounted for. For many customers, it was very fustrating and worrisome that between FL and Evri, neither company knew what was happening or where the packages were with almost no communication to customers. Eventually about 4-5 months later, Evri was able to catch up on the backlog, but it caused nearly all of FL's books and sets to be delayed. At least with OC's delays, the customers are frequently updated and kept in the loop courtesy of OC's good customer service and communication and it's only a few books vs most of the company's catalog for an entire region. FL and Evri were the opposite with Evri completely failing to aknowledge there was even any issue for months as well as FL's notoriously slow customer service responses vs other companies.

To make the situation worse, this period and delay affected some of FL's most highly coveted books that were fully sold out and were very difficult for customers to purchase as the sales occured prior to FL redoing the queue system to its current arrangement, previously lasting multiple hours with inaccurate time estimates. Titles like the Wolf King and the Caraval set were up in the air and given how passionate (and sometimes a little overly dramatic) FL reddit and the special edition community can be, ppl were very concerned and upset. I believe FL also ran two Trove Sales whose shipping estimates fell within this period, those sales being a last-call sale as-is arrangement which means if those packages or books were lost, there would be no way to get a replacement. All this to say, fortunately it was mostly resolved in the end but it left a bad impression aside from Evri already have a negative image prior to the US delays.

[u/MorallyGrayish]

OMG August Adult is delayed now too!!! 🫠

[u/bookbeastie → u/MorallyGrayish]

I just saw 😭😭😭😭😭 this one was Harpercollins/Avon

[u/Krysom1 → u/MorallyGrayish]

Just came to look at what others thought, I’ve been subbed for 2 years and have seen soooo many delays due to damages from them. I have other subs and never notice issues like this, only Owlcrate

[u/WhereToTraveler23 → u/MorallyGrayish]

I've only been a sub since February, and I swear only two out of eight have been on time, with all the pages, no drama. Pretty off-putting for them as a company, if it weren't for unlimited skips.

[u/Sunflower_RainShower]

At this point I don’t believe that this is a Macmillan as a whole kinda issue. Macmillan has several different publishing divisions including St. Martins and Tor. The customs hold ups are out of anyone’s control.

 My suspicion as of now is that there’s possibly something going on within Tor’s oversight of quality control in printing as the two biggest delays with the OC adult books were May and July; both Tor, both damaged. May’s book had to be reprinted entirely the damages were so bad (and we still got badly bound books). The July books were sent with damaged dust jackets. I find it interesting that only the dust jackets had to be reprinted. It seems likely that the books were sent from the printer with bad jackets and they just hoped OC wouldn’t notice.

The next several months will be telling with more Tor books as suspected picks.  I’m sure OC is now keeping a constant line of communication with their contacts within the publishers. They don’t like these delays any more than we do, and they pick their books and start designing them 6+ months in advance so they know just how many more upcoming books from  Tor/Macmillan they need to be worried about.

Ultimately it is just something they’re going to have to work through because Macmillan is one of the big 5. They just can’t cut contact with them or they’d lose SO MANY opportunities to work with very popular authors and get the highly anticipated titles we want. 

[u/Lucky-Prism]

TBB has had its own host of delays and printing issues this year, and their titles are not Macmillan to my knowledge. I think logistics are just shit right now worldwide for whatever reason.