Huh. Good to know. Great book, isn’t it?
mischievous
The large format softcovers are called, as several people here have said, trade paperbacks. The smaller format softcovers are called mass-market paperbacks.
The order of publication of any form of media is determined largely by profitablity. Profitablity is determined by how much profit can be realized from each individual sale, the size of the audience for each form, and by which forms help or hurt the profitability of other forms.
For A list books, hardbacks come out first, followed by trade-paperbacks, then finally mass market paperbacks. For certain A+ list books, the time between formats can be very long (Harry Potter, for example).
This is done for a practical marketing reason. There are two groups of people who buy hardbacks. The first group is those who prefer hardbacks to paperbacks and are willing to pay a premium for them. This group is inconsequential to marketing, as they’ll buy the hardback no matter when it’s released. The second group is those who would prefer the $8 paperback, but must have the book the moment it’s released, so are willing to pay two to three times as much for the hardcover. I have Bad Business here in hardback for that very reason. Publishing the paperback first would lose the second group as hardback buyers for the publisher.
Trade paperbacks are the intermediate step, and they exist mostly for the same reason as hardbacks: to get as much profit as possible from the book before it goes to paperback.
To be fair, there are people who will choose the more expensive format given the choice of the less expensive, but they are in the minority. For most, the packaging is far less important than the content.
I personally find trade paperbacks to be my favorite format for a book I think I’ll probably read more than once. Books I cannot wait for are bought in hardback then sold on Half.com. Most, though, end up being mass market paperbacks, simply because of the cost.
The chief problems with mass market books are the quality of paper they’re printed on the quality of the binding. Mass market paperbacks typically are printed on high asic wood pulp paper, while most hardbacks and trades are printed on lower-acid or acid free papers, often with some rag (cotten fiber) content. Hardcovers and trades are usually both sewn and glued, while mass-market paperbacks often skip sewing the pages to save costs.
Put more simply, the manufacturing process for the interior pages of a trade paperback is nearly identical to that of a hardback, while a mass market paperback is all about minimizing costs.
Dust covers are interesting. Despite their name, their primary function has nothing to do with keeping the dust off of the book. Publishers discovered long ago that, despite the proverb to the contrary, a people do tend to judge a book by its cover, and books with attractive cover art sell better than those without it. With a paperback, it’s quite easy to put the artwork on the cover, but with hardbacks it’s a different story. It costs a lot less to put pictorial artwork on a piece of paper and wrap it around your cover than it does to put that same artwork directly on the cover.
Paradoxically, though the nominal function of the dustcover is to protect the cover of the book, for collectible books, it’s actually vitally important that the dustcover itself be protected from defects. For some collectible books, the price of a book with a high-quality dust cover can be twice that of the same book without it.
One last thing:
I actually physically flinched when I read the bolded part.
By the way, the pages fell out because they were spine cut and glued but not sewn, which is the cheapest way to assemble a book. Better quality mass market books are still sewn, and some longer books will actually have the spines pre-creased for you.
I don’t crease my paperbacks when I get them, but I do judge my enjoyment of a paperback by how well its spine is cracked.
And though this really should be another thread, I buy my Pratchett when he comes into the stores. Once I got an advanced copy and just squealed with glee…but yes, as soon as his books end up in the stores, I snag them up and devour 'em. I get my Harry Potter books the same way.
That’s pretty much how I feel, which is why I trained myself not to, so now it’s habit how I hold a book. I have one book that drives me aboslutely nuts whenever I read it because I accidentally cracked the spine and it’s cracked in such a way as the page holds a little wonky at the beginning of my favourite story (it’s a collection)
I remember having this discussed in the Baen web forums, regarding why the newer novels are coming out first in hardcover, and then into paperback. While some of the ansewers are the same, you get people who like the hardcovers , more durable and stuff , but as well , the authors wish to have the novels put into their biggest revenue generator , and for as long as possible.
Where we (me) disagree , is the wait. I can understand the rational, just an off the cuff guess , 12 percent of 35 bucks , is more than 12 percent of 8 bucks or what have you.
So instead of every week buying four paperbacks , I now have to strategically spend money. So Neal Stephensons new series ,gets picked up in Hard cover , Alistair Reynolds gets picked up in the jumbo paper back, David Weber is gonna be a library loan, and Dan Brown gets to wait for his paperback to come out.
The other thing that I can see , is that very few of the big paper backs that I see ,are actually american authors. The only one that I currently own , is by Elizabeth Moon, and is three books in one , reprinted.
Declan
Personally, I can’t stand the trade paperbacks. If I want durability, I’ll buy the hardback (and probably get the dust jacket slipcovered in plastic). To me, the tradeoff of expense vs. size and quality just isn’t justifiable. The only reason I’d buy a trade paperback is if I wasn’t sure that the book would come out in some other edition (I have a couple of copies of Good Omens in trade pb) or if I found the book used at a good price.
Some people have talked about smearing ink. Publishers are switching to soy inks, instead of using petrochemicals. These inks are less durable AND more costly from what I understand, but they’re far more environmentally friendly. Of course, this is small consolation when one is wearing white and one wishes to read.
The more I know about the book publishing industry, the more disgusted I get.
Where’s the “Yes, I know I’m shitty about this, but I do it anyway” smile?
:o - I guess this one, but it looks more like a yawn.
I know. I shouldn’t break the spine immediately. I should read the book and if it breaks naturally, I’ll let it go. But I read while I do SO many things, it just makes it easier. And I keep my books for a long, long time - I have over 1500 books in my small apartment probably - 5 large bookshelves full, and others that just spill over because they won’t fit. I also read and re-read my books all the time - so they take a serious beating. If a cracked spine is the worst of it, that’s not so bad:).
(although, I think it’s time to spring for a new copy of Jane Eyre - my one copy is falling apart, dog-eared, the cover’s ripped and torn, and the back cover is hanging on by a thread - I’ve had it for about ten years at least, so it’s lasted awhile for a regular paperback.).
Ava
Well, it could be a lot worse. It could be the textbook publishing industry. (What, you want to buy this slim paperback for which there is a high demand, which was first published over 50 years ago by a guy who is now dead? That’s 30 pounds please, and thank me for the low price.) This is however a rant for another day.
If people were to publish paperbacks of decent quality in a size that was not previously designed as a weapon of warfare, there’s a good chance I’d buy them. For authors I really like anyway (For most authors I buy second hand, so I’d take whatever came up there). Hell, if people were to publish hardbacks of a sensible size (it’s perfectly possible - it’s done for textbooks, it used to be done for a lot of high quality fiction), I’d be beating a path to the book store when they came out.
Yeah I agree with the rant. The whole point of paperbacks to me is portability. I read a lot too (example: I went into a bookshop on the way home from work the other day for one specific guidebook - came out with three novels as well even though I’d two new books lined up to read at home :rolleyes: ).
I’m also fussy with books. I won’t lend them until I’ve read them first and I can read a paperback quite easily without cracking the spine and try to avoid doing so at all costs. Still I read on the bus, in the park, in cafés etc. so the ideal book is a small paperback.
Some publishers even do smaller than normal paperbacks which are great and those tiny hardbacks are lovely but not many around. Normal hardbacks can only be read sitting up in a chair really and they’re too bulky to carry around. Trade paperbacks are the same but not quite so bad. Give me ordinary paperbacks any day.
Strangely enough, her books come out in the opposite order (or so it seems) hardcover, then the mass market, then they pull the mass market from the shelves and only sell the trade paperback. While you can find “Sushi for Beginners” in mass market, good luck finding any of her older books in anything but trade paperback (which, like the OP, I tend not to like). And that’s infuriating, waiting for a massmarket copy only to find out that they’re not making them any more at all.
I crease all my paperbacks, trade or mass market, new or used–don’t ask me why, it’s just some sort of compulsion I’ve had for more than thirty years. (And not just mine–I do it to library books, too.)
I carefully count the pages, and make sure I crease, first at the exact 1/2 point, then at each of the 1/4 and 3/4 points, so the book is evenly divided into fourths.