The term “mass-market paperback” refers to a paperback book of a specific size, 4-1/4 inches by 7 inches. When mass-market paperbacks were first introduced in the 1930s, the idea was that they could be priced very affordably due to the economies of scale gained by printing huge runs (i.e., 20,000 copies) of them. Publishers hoped to expand the market for books by selling these mass-market titles in locations that lacked a bookstore. To accomplish this goal, they made deals with magazine and newspaper distributors who had racks in drugstores, department stores, and on city street corners. These distributors required that the books all be of the same size so as to fit in their racks. Thus, mass-markets are also known as “rack-size paperbacks”. Because shipping costs used to be more expensive than printing costs, mass-markets that didn’t sell were usually “stripped” of their covers. The covers were returned to the publisher for a credit and the books themselves were pulped.
Today, I feel like fewer and fewer books are being published in the traditional mass-market paperback size. Instead, we are seeing a new premium-sized mass-market that is 4-1/4 inches by 7-1/2 inches and priced at around $9.99 (traditional size mass-markets usually cost only $6.99-7.99). Also, more and more books are being released in paperback in trade paperback format only. Trade paperbacks are usually the size of a small hardback and priced at $14-15.
So why is the mass-market dying? (more…)
