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

[Quoth]

For those confused:
"Mass market paperback" is a size, not paperbacks for a mass market! The European "Pocket book" is a similar size and sometimes the terms are interchangeable.
The PB in Europe it's commonly a size of 110 mm x 180 mm (approximately 4.3" x 7")
The MMP in the USA it's commonly 4.2" x 6.75". However it's not an exact standard. Sizes of 4.2" x 7" and 4.45" x 7" are also common.

In the UK it was created for railway station shop racks in the early 1930s.

Amazon has never offered the smallest sizes and I think their smallest is 5" x 8", with over large internal margins (gutter) for binding as the page count rises.

The "Trade Paperback" is also simply a size, and sold now in exactly the same retail outlets. A size of 5.8" x 8.3" is common, but so is 6" x 9" and 6" x 9.2". It too doesn't have an agreed standard size.

The actual cover image includes the spine and back and is larger to allow for trim.
The internal page size is also larger, but the margins must allow for trim and binding.

One annoying thing for some people buying a long series is that the physical books might be even 4 different sizes, not counting only getting some titles in hardback (usually fake hardback)!

[JSWolf]

Basically MMPB are gone.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

For those confused:
"Mass market paperback" is a size, not paperbacks for a mass market! The European "Pocket book" is a similar size and sometimes the terms are interchangeable.
The PB in Europe it's commonly a size of 110 mm x 180 mm (approximately 4.3" x 7")
The MMP in the USA it's commonly 4.2" x 6.75". However it's not an exact standard. Sizes of 4.2" x 7" and 4.45" x 7" are also common.

In the UK it was created for railway station shop racks in the early 1930s.

Amazon has never offered the smallest sizes and I think their smallest is 5" x 8", with over large internal margins (gutter) for binding as the page count rises.

The "Trade Paperback" is also simply a size, and sold now in exactly the same retail outlets. A size of 5.8" x 8.3" is common, but so is 6" x 9" and 6" x 9.2". It too doesn't have an agreed standard size.

The actual cover image includes the spine and back and is larger to allow for trim.
The internal page size is also larger, but the margins must allow for trim and binding.

One annoying thing for some people buying a long series is that the physical books might be even 4 different sizes, not counting only getting some titles in hardback (usually fake hardback)!

MMPB in the US were the same size The size is/was 4.25 by 6.87 inches. I never had one larger then another in my bookshelves.

The trade paperback is not simply a larger size. The trade was created to be larger so the publishers could justify an increased cost. And because of this increased cost for trade, that means the publishers are justified in higher prices for eBooks.

In the US, most MMPB had a price of $7.99 on the cover. I had discount cards from Waldentbooks. If I bought enough, I got 15% off. I really did take advantage of that,

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

MMPB in the US were the same size The size is/was 4.25 by 6.87 inches. I never had one larger then another in my bookshelves.

In your experience.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The trade paperback is not simply a larger size. The trade was created to be larger so the publishers could justify an increased cost. And because of this increased cost for trade, that means the publishers are justified in higher prices for eBooks.

Citation?

Originally Posted by JSWolf

In the US, most MMPB had a price of $7.99 on the cover. I had discount cards from Waldentbooks. If I bought enough, I got 15% off. I really did take advantage of that,

In many countries a cover price set by maker or distributor is illegal.
The way all ebook retailers (and online paper book sellers) have price set by publisher is illegal in any physical shop in UK & Ireland. I can't see why the online sellers get away with this.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by Quoth

For those confused:
The "Trade Paperback" is also simply a size, and sold now in exactly the same retail outlets. A size of 5.8" x 8.3" is common, but so is 6" x 9" and 6" x 9.2". It too doesn't have an agreed standard size.

The actual cover image includes the spine and back and is larger to allow for trim.
The internal page size is also larger, but the margins must allow for trim and binding.

One annoying thing for some people buying a long series is that the physical books might be even 4 different sizes, not counting only getting some titles in hardback (usually fake hardback)!

I moved a few years ago and boxed all of my books. I can verify that trade paperback sizes vary all over the place. There were probably about twenty sizes that most of them fit into, but one-offs were not that rare. It made boxing them efficiently a real pain and took many days. Man, I think I still have some PTSD over that experience.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

In your experience.


Citation?



In many countries a cover price set by maker or distributor is illegal.
The way all ebook retailers (and online paper book sellers) have price set by publisher is illegal in any physical shop in UK & Ireland. I can't see why the online sellers get away with this.

[salamanderjuice]

Originally Posted by Quoth

In many countries a cover price set by maker or distributor is illegal.
The way all ebook retailers (and online paper book sellers) have price set by publisher is illegal in any physical shop in UK & Ireland. I can't see why the online sellers get away with this.

The price on the book is the recommended price in North America. Stores can and do frequently ignore it, although it doesn't look so good when the store's price is higher.

[rkomar]

I noticed mass market paperbacks disappearing long before ebooks and audiobooks hit their current popularity. For space reasons, I preferred buying MMPBs over trade paperbacks, but fewer and fewer were being published as time went on. That's the part that grated for me when it was mentioned that sales were dropping for MMPBs in the video linked above. Well duh! Sales will drop if you cut back on what you offer.

Here in Canada, the ebooks I buy are generally priced like trade paperbacks. I felt some jealousy seeing comments about them being priced like MMPBs in other countries. However, I wonder if that will hold now that the cheapest paper copies will be trade paperbacks?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by rkomar

I noticed mass market paperbacks disappearing long before ebooks and audiobooks hit their current popularity. For space reasons, I preferred buying MMPBs over trade paperbacks, but fewer and fewer were being published as time went on. That's the part that grated for me when it was mentioned that sales were dropping for MMPBs in the video linked above. Well duh! Sales will drop if you cut back on what you offer.

Here in Canada, the ebooks I buy are generally priced like trade paperbacks. I felt some jealousy seeing comments about them being priced like MMPBs in other countries. However, I wonder if that will hold now that the cheapest paper copies will be trade paperbacks?

The blame for some eBook pricing belongs to Apple. They got the other big publishers to get together to try to take down Amazon's eBooks and they did so by trying to make all pricing the same so it didn't matter where you bought from. What Apple and the Price Fix Six did was close down some very good independent online eBook shops. Also because of this there have been times I've seen the eBook more expensive then the pBook because the seller is unable to have a sale on the eBook but can on the pBook.

[Courant]

Originally Posted by Quoth

In many countries a cover price set by maker or distributor is illegal.
The way all ebook retailers (and online paper book sellers) have price set by publisher is illegal in any physical shop in UK & Ireland. I can't see why the online sellers get away with this.

The cover price is just the list price, pretty much all retail products have them, even if they aren't visible to the consumer. They are often higher then the actual sale price. You're thinking of the Net Book Agreement, which was industry collusion and would probably be illegal in North America as well (except Mexico, where like Europe, the publishers fix prices by law)

I think ebook prices are the same across platforms in large part because the same factors determines those price and the ease of comparing prices online. European laws on fixed prices create an incentive to maintain the same price as well. Basically, if a publisher determines the best price for a book, there is no reason for that to be different for Amazon and Kobo. Also, I don't think the platforms or the publishers put that much thought into the price of individual books. Because it is a digital product they don't have to worry about overstock.

[WillAdams]

In my experience, MMPB sizes vary a fair bit (to the point where I have one shelf which I custom made for some paperbacks and others will not fit).

It's really annoying that Amazon won't offer Print on Demand in the smaller size --- I bought _Churl_ the last Matador novel by Steve Perry in print with the expectation that it would shelve with my other copies, but no go.

[Canuck_in_Japan]

I won't be sorry to see these abominations gone! Such cheap quality and tiny print. I see tons of these books at the thrift store and they all have cracked spines and the pages have turned a dark brown colour. The trade paperbacks are usually in almost mint condition.

[nana77]

The "japanese" version seem to have a more straight standardized size: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunkobon