Quote:
Originally Posted by ZodWallop
Kind of funny how even though we are told that the actual printing price is only a small fraction of the cost to produce a book, a trade paperback tends to cost double or more than the exact same book as a mass market paperback.
This street runs both ways.
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Generally what you pay for with trade or hard back is getting the book a year before the regular paper back is available. The publisher's price model is mostly based on availability and price points rather than cost of materials. There are a few exceptions to that rule (for example, the first Harry Potter was released later in hard back because people wanted a full set of hard back versions). Trade came out as a less expensive version of the Hardback, not because it was cheaper to produce, but rather because the author didn't have the name recognition to get people to cough up the price of a hard back, but they figured they could get more than paper back prices for it. Sometimes they did a very limited hard back roll out with a simultaneous trade roll out.
If I remember correctly, the first trade that I bought was the Sword of Shannara, which I bought mostly because they used the Brothers Hildebrandt to do the illustrations.