Publishers Killed the Paperback, Then Blamed Readers
jacobin.com
jacobin.com
Since a large fraction of MMPs sold were genre fiction and a large fraction of that has shifted to ebooks (romance readers were the biggest early adopters of the kindle), along with the decline of book sales outside of bookstore channels, the loss of MMPs isn’t the cultural cataclysm the article claims. Meanwhile, it’s worth noting that the trade paperback space has expanded. It’s not uncommon for a new writer’s first book to be released as a trade paperback rather than hardcover (Emily St John Mandel is one notable example of a writer who debuted in TP but had later books released in HC).
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1. It was typically pure wood-pulp paper with high acid content, leading these books to be described as “pulp novels” and since a large fraction of these were genre novels, genre fiction would be referred to as pulp fiction and yes, that’s where the movie gets its name from.
Even airport stores are at least half that crap in many cases.
Sure many MMPs are genre fiction but long long ago... you used to see really serious books like government reports on inner city riots, books by all the players in the Watergate scandal, books about science, shakespeare plays, serious fiction, etc. in that format.
I hypothesize that the kind of reader who wants a physical copy of a book is much happier to get a hardcover. I know I’ve personally lever liked the cheap flimsiness of mass market paperbacks and I don’t read frequently enough for the higher price of a hardcover to matter.
The kind of person who wants the cheapest possible book moved from mass market paperbacks to e-readers.
There was a recent article probably posted here about how UHD 4K Blu-ray sales are increasing over time, somewhat counter to what the average person might assume. I think this analogy works reasonably well. The 4K UHD buyer fits a niche of someone who isn’t satisfied by streaming. They want a keepsake physical piece of media with beautiful box art and the highest quality picture and sound available.
In contrast, the kind of person who would have bought DVDs from the Walmart bin has almost certainly moved to digital. They never cared about the quality of the media, they just wanted a low price with a lot of convenience.
Audiobook sales continue to grow strongly every year, where as ebooks have been flat or declining in recent years.
Once I'm done borrowing an audiobook from the library through Libby or Hoopla, I might buy a physical book if I liked it enough. I usually don't foresee myself listening to the book again.
In cases where I have trouble getting a book from the library, it's often on Spotify. An Audible subscription would be mostly redundant.
One of the most well-read person I know recently revealed to me that the hundreds of books he read over past few years were actually mostly audiobooks - because it turns out that most of his dayjob is physical, low-cognitive-demand kind, and pairs perfectly with audiobooks, basically keeping his brain engaged while his muscles do the repetitive work.
I'm in the opposite boat. Growing up, I mostly had paperbacks, and when I encountered hardcover, I just couldn't fathom why someone would pay so much more for something so obviously inferior. They're a bigger pain to hold. Not convenient to put in a backpack. Take up way more space on the bookshelf. Etc.
That said, I usually just stick to my kindle.
They are big, and bulky. They don't fit into a backpack. And you can't simply hold them in one hand and read, anywhere you sit. Like a bench in a garden. You need a space dedicated to reading them.
In terms of utility, hardcovers are strictly worse.
https://www.amazon.com/Hobbit-Lord-Rings-Deluxe-Pocket/dp/05...
The only hard bound books I’ve ever purchased that wouldn’t fit in a backpack were intentionally oversized “coffee table” books.
I can think of one time in my adult life that my backpack has been anywhere close to that full, which was a weekend trip to New York City where I was testing whether I could get away with not needing to navigate the transit system with a large bag (it worked but didn't really feel worth the effort). A hardcover would be no issue to fit in any normal situation.
That said, when I travel I carry an e-reader and usually pick up a car magazine at the airport newsstand. My physical books stay at home.
“Can’t fit a hardback book into a backpack” is nonsense. Even in middle school and high school hardback books are often exactly what is filling the backpack so full.
But when I pick up a random sci-fi/fantasy book for my own entertainment, I guarantee that taking notes is not a normal use case. Carrying it in my jacket, and reading it wherever I happen to be sitting down, is.
I'm not saying you have to like hardcovers, but I don't find your reasons persuasive TBH.
Sure - if I have a nice chair to sit on in the evening, with good lighting, and can rest it on something, they're quite nice. But the bulk of my reading is either outside of home (so they need to fit in my bag nicely) in an uncomfortable chair, or while lying down so I need to hold the book up. Weight/size really matters here.
When I was a kid I asked around, and in those days the reasons I was given were:
1. They're durable - less likely to fall apart - and may last generations.
2. The font is bigger.
Having the survivors of the Great Depression around was amazing as far as mindsets go. I miss those folks.
Later in my teenage years, I would be spending inordinate time in the bathroom every evening, with a tub of Vaseline. That's right, I was able to solve a lubricated, optimized Rubik's Cube in 63 seconds!
When people realised they could import books from the UK and America for cheap bookstores started selling those $9.99 paperbacks. As an added bonus lots of younger folks switched to reading in English.
Consuming media in Dutch is more expensive. Smart move government. Now they're whining about English taking over the public space...
So when you are buying a good hardcover you get something that will last and you only read at behind the desk, "as it should be done".
Paperback is only good if you are going to use it to start a fire later on.
That being said I'm coming from a place where (in my youth) paperbacks where only for technical literature and pulp fiction.
The “bottom end” of the camera market is basically gone now, but the high end full frame bodies are still selling.
When I've looked at ebooks in the past they were usually more expensive than mass market paperback, most often on par with trade paperback. Has this changed?
You yourself did not read that much by own words and was in harcover group for reasons that sound more aesthetic.
If you buy a lot of your books second-hand and live in an expensive part of the world (as I do) then you will likely find that the cost of the books is less than the cost of the larger house you need to fit them in. So you want physically smaller editions of the books if possible.
There are exceptions, of course. Anything you frequently want to have open and flat in front of you -- e.g., cookery books -- you will prefer to be a nice hardback that you can do that with. "Coffee table" books whose whole purpose is to look nice need to be hardbacks (though I personally buy very few of those). Some books never get published in paperback editions.
Nope. I vastly prefer paperback. I don’t like ebooks much, and hardcover books are too large, too heavy, and take up too much space on a bookshelf. For books I know I’ll re-read, I might go for one, and I’ve certainly made some impulse HC buys that I regret, but I vastly prefer paperbacks.
One of the best things about mass market paperbacks was you could fit one in a jacket pocket, and easily carry 1-2 around with you.
I can take most young people today, give them access to all the paperbacks in the world (and despite the point of the article, it is very easy to find paperbacks!) and their reading will barely change.
The culture has shifted. Screens are a likely problem. Books - particularly paperbacks - were handy because they could be used to in times of boredom. Waiting at the doctor's office. Commuting to work/school (if you're not driving). In the evening when nothing good was on TV and your computer is turned off. When you didn't want to tie up the phone line talking to friends.
Now there are many more alternatives to fill those spaces.
There’s also a lack of historical knowledge. Sure, mass market paperbacks were a new format — but not completely new in 1939. Cheap paperbacks date back to the previous century. The author of this piece would have done well to spend some time with Wikipedia.
For that matter, showing some curiosity about reading habits in general would have helped. Reading wasn’t a new habit: dime novels and pulp magazines were deeply popular in the early 20th century. The jump to mass market paperbacks was not particularly long.
Here’s a very brief example on the dime novel case: https://techlashed.org/panic/cheap-popular-fiction-penny-dre...
Virtually all the 19th century novels on the Polish school curriculum first appeared in chapters published in newspapers, appealing to mass reader and yet still managing to touch important social and political issues, often under disguise.
Here in Germany where I live now, the situation is different because of protectionist policies towards publishing (it's illegal to sell a book below the asking price of the publisher). There are publishers specializing in affordable editions of classics (Reclam, Nikol) and some publishers run their titles in multiple paperback editions with different prices, but obtaining any recent work is a costly endeavor.
Your library and project gutenburg have a bunch of books you can read for free on your phone or web browser. Or the kindle/Kobo ecosystem. And with the web, you can reserve physical copies of paperbacks or expensive new hardcover books at the library and have them waiting for you to pick up.
We live in an era of unprecedented super abundance of good reading.
This "i just found something unfair" style journalism is very frustrating because they only consider evidence that you are powerless.
You are not powerless. You can read great stuff and don't have to pay a lot. Go get it!
Someone like you who cares about practicality of “tossing in a bag for a commute” is better served by an e-reader.
Someone who finds hardcovers and big paperbacks too expensive or ungainly, again, better served by e-readers.
Someone who wants the cheapest price possible: e-readers.
That leaves the physical book buyer in much be same niche as a vinyl or 4K UHD Blu-ray buyer. They aren’t buying for convenience and the way the physical object looks and performs matters a lot more than convenience.
Even in the 1980s there was a surge in expensive "trade paperbacks" that were frequently terribly built. Like you buy one from the store and open it and the binding cracks the very first time.
I have a lot of mass market paperbacks that I mostly bought used in the 1980 and I'd say in the 2000s they were in mostly excellent condition, but at this point in time they are pretty yellowed. My storage conditions are awful, an old farmhouse with a permeable basement, but when I look at books of all kind from the 1960s and 1970s, especially mass market paperbacks that have been rebound, the yellowing is severe.
But even despite them being "cheap", "low quality", etc. I think they were mass produced and more consistent in quality than many more expensive books.
I buy a lot of e-Books but I am putting together a kit for doing tarot readings for other people (most people find the cards are cooperative 30-50% of the time but I have a shtick that gets a response I like almost 100%) and I am starting to be able to work without a book but I still want books and for that I want real books, small books, not something to look at on a phone or tablet.
200k on a screen is trivial, but in paper form it's a monster.
Its gotten to the point i just dont buy books anymore.
I miss the days of reading in bed my small format paperback.
I remember going shopping with my Mom at Costco and the book section was like the highlight!
We did have a Waldenbooks in the mall that was 45 minutes away that we went to 4x/year, but the local library was tiny and I read everything worth reading there probably before I was 10.
The local grocery store had a small section of mass-market paperbacks, and it was my primary place to get books. I know it had lots of Stephen King novels, and I think my first copy of Dune may even have come from there.
(Hardcovers were something that libraries had, not anything normal people would buy, as far as I knew.)
There were a lot of variety stores that could get away with a section for software or video games in those days.
> Beginning in January 2025, the company will stop stocking books regularly, and will instead sell them only during the holiday shopping period, from September through December. During the rest of the year, some books may be sold at Costco stores from time to time, but not in a consistent manner, according to the executives
I want to start reading again from physical books. I’ll admit I’ve used Anna’s Archive a lot more than I should ethically.
Share your favourite books if you care to. I used to be a voracious reader consuming 10+ books a week. Books were my escape. I’m constantly looking for books to read as I have the unfortunate tendency to finish them in one sitting.
No mass market paperbacks. Just the trade ones.
submitted, but no traction: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46482146
I feel like reading a lot of books - good content or not - gave me advantages in school over my peers.
Is nothing sacred? This isn't hacking. More like cracking.
As far as I can tell, private equity firms are a virus exploiting bugs in our economic system to steal its lifeblood. The known bugs are trickle-down economics, the Citizens United decision, lax antitrust law enforcement.. the list goes on. I shudder to think what kinds of backroom deals happen every day to further separate us from our time, money and resources.
If the hackers of the world were to unite under one cause, surely it would be to patch our broken system and get the power back. Whatever happened to unmasking the bad guys and bringing them to justice? Has no one seen Sneakers, Johnny Mnemonic or even Hackers for crying out loud? Those aren't even classics, or books, but they run circles around today's ensh!ttified surrender culture.