Quote:
Originally Posted by Sweetpea
There will always be collectors. Even with the LP to CD change years ago, you can still buy new LPs. And that even has the huge drawback that you need an actual device to use it. With paper books, you can just buy them and read, even 100 years from now (unless you cannot read anymore, but then ebooks will also be turned into movie books or audiobooks)
But collectors don't want the cheap versions, they want the sturdy ones, the ones that look nice on a shelf. That's why I think the mass market paperbacks will be removed from the book stage.
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Mass market, at least the older ones, have their share of collectors, but I agree they'll be gone first, but not simply because of the lack of demand from current collectors. The problem is economics, the business model is too inefficient, so the publishers are likely to stop producing them before the demand vanishes completely.
Trade books (hardcovers and trade paperbacks) not only have a higher profit margin, but once returned can usually be resold as remainders enabling the publishers to at least recoup the printing cost. Mass market paperbacks are destroyed rather than returned, so the wastage is significant.
eBooks will pretty much eliminate the mass market relatively quickly, but the trade should stay around quite a bit longer.