In the last couple of years I’ve noticed – in drugstores and newsstands, not bookstores – paperback novels that are about an inch taller than the standard mass-market paperback. Does this format have a name? Is it new? And why?
Those are called trade paperbacks. They’re usually more expensive, but printed on better quality paper with better binding.
No, trade paperbacks are much bigger than mass-market paperbacks in all dimensions. The format I’m describing is identical to MM except in height.
They’re still generally categorized as mass markets. In addition to being taller, they have larger print. The publishers are doing it to make it easier for readers with poor vision (and charging a few bucks more.) Here’s a New York Times article about them…
This book talks a bit about some of the reasons: Editors on Editing: What Writers Need to Know about what Editors Do - Google Books
And this talks some about the history: Editors on Editing: What Writers Need to Know about what Editors Do - Google Books
That talks about trade paperbacks. That’s not what these are. They’re mass-market paperbacks, just about an inch taller with larger print. Check out the NY Times article I linked to.
Ah. Right. Sorry.
Basically they’re MM Paperbacks only slightly modified so as to justify a higher price, and probably also to fit larger print in order to accommodate the Baby Boomers’ increasing presbyopia 
Whatever they’re called, whyever the publishers are doing it, I ain’t buying them. The last thing we need is a new, more expensive paperback format.
Publishers, when you do this, you lose my money.
That’s why they only do this with the most famous and sought after writers that people are going to buy no matter what.
The books are $9.99 instead of $7.99. That’s 25% more. If they lose 10% like you, they’re still ahead.
I agree, certainly, that publishers have priced mass market paperbacks out of the market. Doesn’t mean that the price will ever go down.
Well, what about formats like the new Carl Hiaasen paperback?
I was waiting for it to come out in paperback–and I went to the local independent bookstore to buy it. I was shocked when I saw it. It was larger than a mass-market paperback, but about the same quality–but it was 14 bucks!
Now, I don’t mind paying more for a decent trade paperback, especially if it’s a title I’m planning to keep. “Trade paperback” usually means that the paper quality and binding and typesetting will be better. I expect it to last a while. But this thing was printed on the same pulpy junk that the typical mass-market paperback is!
As far as I’m concerned, 7 or 8 bucks is even too high of a price for a mass-market paperback, so I get most of my junky reading material used. But I pay that for something like a Carl Hiaasen book, because I know I’ll enjoy the hell out of it, probably read it a couple of times, and then give it away so someone else can enjoy it too. But $14 was just too much.
I felt like a bit of an ass, but I told the bookstore owner the truth–that I just wasn’t willing to spend $14 on something of that quality, so I was going to just take it out of the library. I asked if regular mass-market paperbacks were available to order, and she told me no. She also told me that these more expensive versions were becoming more common, and that it was really bad for her business because people didn’t want to buy them. And that she was sympathetic to the feelings of the consumer–she wouldn’t want to spend $14 on that either!
Is there a name for them? How about really, really f’cking annoying.
Everybody hates 'em – booksellers, because they don’t fit into displays, Baby Boomers, because if the print is larger it’s only infinitesimally so, and everyone else because they are a cynical marketing ploy to pick your pocket for another couple of bucks.
Dumb stoopid oversized mass market abominations. Feh.
Koeeoaddi,
Bookseller, emeritus
I think that view is a bit short-sighted.
Look what happened to movies. People used to go all the time and see whatever was playing. Certain movies sold better than others of course, but people weren’t super-picky. Then movies got WAY more expensive. And people got out of the movie-going habit. They became much more picky because it was a much greater investment. There are other factors that contributed to the move away from regular movie-going, but price was a huge factor.
If you make the cheapest books too expensive, people will get out of the book-buying habit too. Lots of people just blithely pick up whatever’s new from their favorite authors, or whatever looks tempting on the rack at the drugstore. Kick the price a notch higher, and people may well just start patroinizing the library!
What? You’re accusing publishers of being short-sighted? Publishers? Publishers who only advertise books they’ve already decided are going to sell? Publishers who spend millions of dollars on celebrity books that will never sell just to keep other publishers from getting them? Publishers who have been gutting their editorial departments for decades? Publishers who have destroyed the midlist? Publishers who base buying decisions on an author’s last book, even if that book has no relevance to the next book? Publishers who are tiny parts of enormous mega-corporations with no hope of ever matching the returns of the other companies so they all run panicked every second of every day?
You’re calling publishers short-sighted?
How dare you, sir! Pistols at dawn!
Librarians hate them too because their price cuts into our book budget and their size makes them hard to fit on standard size paperback racks.
Okay, okay…how 'bout “even more short-sighted than usual?”
That would be "ma’am to you, bucky!
From a distributor’s website description of Steve Berry’s latest paperback, The Alexandria Link, which I’ve seen and is the type of paperback you’re asking about, so it’s a tall Premium Edition. Or maybe a tall Premium Edition.
Huh. I’ve only seen one once, and I thought it was a fluke. It caught my eye, though, because something immediately looked off about the size, so I couldn’t resist comparing it to a normal paperback nearby to see if my eyes were playing tricks on me.
I wonder if the book I want that comes out in March (The Lost Ones by Christopher Golden) will be this format because it’s not trade paperback, and the pre-order price is $10 after a 25% dicount for preordering which struck me as odd because I bought another in the series for the usual $6.99 price recently.
No, it’s not a Premium Edition or the regular paperback size like the first two are, it’s the larger ‘B’ format. Both the previous two came out in this size first as well.
And I want to read it too! The date I have for it is March 25th.
I imagine librarians hating paperbacks in general. They can’t last long. I’ve checked out ones that were losing pages.