Be thankful you are not an Australian. I think book shops will cease to exist in Australia because the prices are so high. The average paperback costs 20 to 30 odd dollars. Nearly everyone I know only buys from The Book Depository US or UK. They offer free world wide delivery and for example Ed McBain’s Killer’s Choice is $8.98 delivered through them or $17.95 at Borders. Eat, Pray, Love is $11.60 delivered or $24.95 at any major Australian bookstore.
I AM thankful that I’m not Australian, for just that reason. I think that book prices in Australia are just outrageous.
As near as I can tell, they don’t have a universal name like mass market paperback or trade paperback. But the most common names I see are tall paperback or large-trim paperback.
They do, they’re called premium mass market paperbacks. I think it’s intended to convey something is special about them, but as far as I can tell it’s really just conveying that you’re paying a premium to own one.
I think “Premium” is just another publisher-specific name thought for them. I’ve also seen them touted as “Comfort Size” and “Special Edition” paperbacks in publisher catalogs. There is no accepted name the way mass market and trade are used throughout the entire industry.
Between The Book Depository and Amazon, I’m astounded there are anything like as many bookshops left in Australia as there are, to be honest.
They’re good for getting Reference books from when they end up in the bargain bin, though, but yeah, most of the people I know are now getting their “new” books from overseas where they’re more sensibly priced.
It’s not publisher-specific: Random House, HarperCollins, and Penguin all use the term, as does Publisher’s Weekly. So that may not be universal, but it’s by far the most common usage I’ve seen.
Out of those publishers, only Penguin uses the “Premium” designation as the official name for the size. Random House and HarperCollins consider all paperbacks that aren’t trade paperbacks “mass market paperbacks.”
You’re right though that Publisher’s Weekly uses the term as if it were the industry standard.
http://www.harpercollins.com/books/Pirate-Latitudes-Michael-Crichton/?isbn=9780061929380
http://us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780425237342,00.html
Is there a reason this situation persists? You’d think this situation would create an obvious window of opportunity for some bookstore chain to move into.
OK, I feel better knowing that no one standard term exists, but that references to terms do. That explains why I knew there was a term but couldn’t remember it.
Still a rip off. I’ve never bought one.
Here’s HarperCollins using the term on their site for retailers:
http://www.harpercollinscatalogs.com/harper/738_1715_313831323331.htm
Here’s Doubleday using it:
http://doubleday.knopfdoubleday.com/2010/05/13/the-lost-symbol-new-formats/
I’m pretty sure there’s a lot of protectionist legislation in place to protect the Australian book industry (and ensure we get “Australian” editions of books, which are usually the same as the UK one from what I can tell).
Also, online shopping hasn’t really taken off here in the way it has in the US- because most online shops are based overseas, there’s horrendous postage charges on the items to the point where the few dollars you save in total still isn’t worth waiting a fortnight to get your item.
Amazon tends to charge significantly less for the trade paperbacks than Barnes and Noble etc do. If you have prime or save up multiple books to buy all at once you’ll save money, at least in my experience. I got free prime with that student thing they were running and I’ve been saving $4-$6 per book probably over B&N prices. B&Ns are often $14 and up but the ones I’ve been getting from Amazon have all been around $10ish.