Mass market paperbacks will all but vanish from the publishing scene in a few weeks

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

No paper books, thank you very much. The only exception would be a book with lots of color photos, but I read very few such books. Otherwise it's ebook, always.

That's been me too, ever since I bought my first Nook in 2012. Before then I was one of those 'only paper books are real books' types. I bought the Nook because it was the first reader I'd seen with a lighted screen (Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight) and it wasn't too expensive even if it turned out to be not for me. I've only read ebooks since then.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

...Before then I was one of those 'only paper books are real books' types.

I was the same way, until I was forced to buy my first ereader, because I ran out of shelf space for paper books.

[pypeke]

Retired teacher here. I doubt all mass produced books will cease to exist.

Scholastic Book Clubs monthly book order forms are still given to teachers for students. There is too much money in it.

I would hate to see how much lower children's reading levels would get without Scholastic's inexpensive paperbacks. Especially with the "screen time" problems that schools are currently discussing.

Most parents would not buy an e-reader if the child already has a tablet, plus e-books are a lot more expensive. School textbooks are all online now. Not sure how because not every child has the internet at home. That may be changing soon.

I don't think Scholastic will ever stop selling paperback books, but they are not exactly the same as buying mass market books at bookstores or Wal-Mart.

I have two shelves of my favorite authors' mass market paperbacks right next to all the VHS Disney movies that need to be thrown out.

[JSWolf]

Trade paperbacks were created in order to be able to raise the price of books, The other reasons the publisher gives for the advantages of trade paperbacks are BS. And because they can raise the price of pBooks, they can also raise the price of eBooks to match.

This is all about money. Raise pBook prices and eBook prices follow.

[Sirtel]

I expect piracy will increase along with increasing prices.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

I expect piracy will increase along with increasing prices.

And that would be on the publishers.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

And that would be on the publishers.

Yeah. Of course there are people who pirate everything regardless of price; but there are also people who buy some of their books and pirate others, because they don't know how to remove DRM, don't want to bother with it, the book is not available in their country or the price is too high for them. This I've gleaned from various comments on various websites.

There is no doubt that the more difficult it is to remove DRM and the higher the price, the more folks turn to illegal means to obtain their books.

[rjwse@aol.com]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Last Call for Mass Market Paperbacks

Mass market paperbacks have long been on their death bed and now the plug has been pulled. I kinda wonder if that format was the most impacted by ebooks?

I do think in part it was killed by big publishers realizing they could sell trade paperbacks for $15-20 instead of the $6-7 of the mass market.

I still have a boatload for far less. Very nostalgic and personal. Tattered but dear to my heart. And there is this: many have never been rerendered into epub and will disappear.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by rjwse@aol.com

I still have a boatload for far less. Very nostalgic and personal. Tattered but dear to my heart. And there is this: many have never been rerendered into epub and will disappear.

I'm not old enough to have those ancient MMSs. Most of what I have and want to read/reread I've replaced with ebooks. Some have no digital edition, but there are few of those. And it's not very likely I'll ever read them again, as I dislike paper books now.

By the time I started buying books in English in my twenties mass market paperbacks already cost $4-5 and the prices were rising. Before that I only read local books in Estonian.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by pypeke

Retired teacher here. I doubt all mass produced books will cease to exist.

Scholastic Book Clubs monthly book order forms are still given to teachers for students. There is too much money in it.

I think you have misunderstood the assignment. Nobody said mass produced books are going away. This is about mass market paperbacks, which are pretty much gone now. Scholastic doesn't publish mass market paperbacks, to my knowledge.

...plus e-books are a lot more expensive.

I don't know about that. I have saved so much money switching to ebooks. Easily enough to pay for the readers I've purchased.

[Sirtel]

I would not say ebooks are more expensive either. Depends on what you meant, of course - e-textbooks are very expensive. But we're talking about ordinary fiction/nonfiction books here.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

I would not say ebooks are more expensive either. Depends on what you meant, of course - e-textbooks are very expensive. But we're talking about ordinary fiction/nonfiction books here.

If your heart is up to it, compare the pricing of textbooks in pbook and ebook form. One of my great-niblings is in UBC's dentistry program. For the upcoming year, they estimated that they will save about $700 purchasing their textbooks in ebook form though that is offset by being unable to resell them after they are no longer needed. The savings were partly the lower costs for most of the ebooks compared to the pbooks, partly the Kobo VIP discount and partly price matching.

The sad part is that most of those textbooks are republished annually with relatively minor corrections and additions making the used versions almost useless.

[salamanderjuice]

Originally Posted by DNSB

If your heart is up to it, compare the pricing of textbooks in pbook and ebook form. One of my great-niblings is in UBC's dentistry program. For the upcoming year, they estimated that they will save about $700 purchasing their textbooks in ebook form though that is offset by being unable to resell them after they are no longer needed. The savings were partly the lower costs for most of the ebooks compared to the pbooks, partly the Kobo VIP discount and partly price matching.

The sad part is that most of those textbooks are republished annually with relatively minor corrections and additions making the used versions almost useless.

It's not always a savings. The eBooks are sometimes only offered on closed crummy platforms like VitalSource. And I'm not sure they put as much effort into the eBook. I remember for one class where I had both the physical and ebook (came free), spent all day struggling trying to do a math problem using the eBook edition at school because I didn't want to lug a big book to campus only discover when I got home that the eBook flipped the inequality!

Another monograph I bought from Amazon was unreadable because the publisher literally forgot all the equation images...

[nana77]

Originally Posted by salamanderjuice

It's not always a savings. The eBooks are sometimes only offered on closed crummy platforms like VitalSource. And I'm not sure they put as much effort into the eBook. I remember for one class where I had both the physical and ebook (came free), spent all day struggling trying to do a math problem using the eBook edition at school because I didn't want to lug a big book to campus only discover when I got home that the eBook flipped the inequality!

Another monograph I bought from Amazon was unreadable because the publisher literally forgot all the equation images...

I guess that one of the first reasons it's like that, is that sellers like Amazon (not like I'm totally counter at its policies, but...), being the first bigger one, can permit to act like so.
When reading the series I'm into, various times the editor said one of the reasons that, in the '60, there was a lack of new good writings onto the SF genre, was because the lack of good editors. So I guess it's not only that a weird policy won't affect then what we'll have on hands to read, and not only that it might cost 2$ more - imho.

[Gormagon]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Mass market paperbacks will all but vanish from the publishing scene in a few weeks

ZodWallop wrote the title at the beginning of 2026. The "few weeks" are really over since then. Did all mass market paperbacks really vanished since then?