

How Paperbacks Transformed the Way Americans Read  - NickPollard
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/137715

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ankeshk
The main take away for me wasn't that Pocket Books introduced 25 cent
paperbacks when hardcovers were priced at $2.75. The main take away for me was
that Pocket Books changed their distribution model too to disrupt the book
publishing industry.

From the article:

"Quantity was key. De Graff knew that if he could print 100,000 paperbound
books, production costs would plummet to 10 cents per copy. But it would be
impossible for Pocket Books to turn a profit if it couldn’t reach hundreds of
thousands of readers. And that would never happen as long as de Graff relied
solely on bookstores for distribution. So de Graff devised a plan to get his
books into places where books weren’t traditionally sold. His twist? Using
magazine distributors to place Pocket Books in newsstands, subway stations,
drugstores, and other outlets to reach the underserved suburban and rural
populace."

~~~
unwind
For me, the main take away was the brand name ("Pocket"); in Swedish paperback
books are still called "pocket" books, and that provides a pretty solid idea
about where that name came from.

To clarify, the word "paperback book" in Swedish is "pocketbok", where "bok"
is Swedish for "book". It's notably not a _translation_ of the original
English, it's literally used in the original form. This seems to be called a
"pseudo-anglicism" (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudo-anglicism#Swedish>
for a list of Swedish's pseudo-anglicisms).

~~~
tgrass
From a young age my father taught me how to be patient in public: he always a
had a paperback in his back pocket to read. So they have always been
pocketbooks to me.

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eikaterine
Funny, I would never have guessed that the book world had been rocked by such
a revolution so relatively recently. Had I been asked about this yesterday I'd
have guessed that the book industry had been relatively undisrupted between
the invention of the Gutenberg printing press and the invention of the e-book.

That being said, it warms this bibliophile's heart that a previous revolution
did not obsolete hardcover books. Perhaps they'll stick around through this
one as well.

~~~
re_todd
But who can afford them? I went to Barnes and Noble a week ago, browsing the
new release section, and the two books that looked interesting that I thought
about buying cost $28 and $26. I quickly put them back and decided to
investigate the Kindle versions or wait for them in paperback.

~~~
eikaterine
Do you really think that spending $28 on a book is prohibitively expensive or
are you playing devil's advocate? I've certainly bought computer games for
$50, I definitely spend more than $28 per month on coffee and other
incidentals. I wouldn't necessarily buy a book that I know nothing about for
$28, sure, but a book that I know and love, or one that's a classic? I'm not
made of money, but I can certainly afford $28 for that, especially since I
also know it'll look great on my bookshelves for years to come and won't fall
apart after 3 readings like a mass market paperback.

~~~
hessenwolf
For me, cost per hour of involvment cost, game < book << dvd, sometimes with
the double angle brackets on the left and sometimes not on the right. However,
I don't re-read novels, and only re-skim technicals.

~~~
eikaterine
If you never reread something, I'd argue the best route for you is a library,
as opposed to buying. Especially now that some of them even lend e-books.

~~~
tjr
Most books I own, I have never seen in any library near me. I'm sure this
varies from region to region, but I stopped getting much value from the public
library in high school, and started collecting my own. Even my university
library where I went to school, with its plethora of fascinating books, has
little overlap with the shelves in my house.

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hartror
I grew up reading a lot of Golden Age (1938 to 1946) science fiction authors
(Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein et al.) and this article provides a wonderful
insight into the publishing world in their formative years.

It must have mirrored something of the revolution that has gone on in modern
times with the internet opening up so many new markets that individuals can
exploit. Certainly before the advent of paperbacks genre fiction was mostly
confined to magazines which is where most (all?) of the Golden Age authors got
their start.

~~~
verisimilidude
Too right.

Oddly enough, the ebook publishing ecosystem has encouraged newer genre
authors to go back to the serial-style storytelling of those old Golden Age
magazines. Many of the most promising new sci-fi writers, like Hugh Howey or
Matthew Mather, are publishing their stories piecemeal as short-form ebooks.
Howey's "Wool" series, in particular, might be the best body of science
fiction I've read in years.

When you follow these new authors, you definitely notice how much they grow as
writers and thinkers as they release new works every month or two. Contrast
this to the old model, in which an author would agonize over a single
manuscript for years and years, hoping against hope to get a bite from a
publisher. I think the new incentives for serial publishing are helping these
new players rapidly perfect their craft—just like the classic sci-fi authors
of the Golden Age. Thanks to ebooks, we may be getting a new crop of authors
to match some of those old giants.

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acabal
The most interesting part for me is the quote from Doubleday's LeBaron R.
Barker: "Paperbacks could undermine the whole structure of publishing."

That sounds very reminiscent of modern-day publisher's demands of restrictive
and onerous DRM shackles for their ebooks, because DRM-free ebooks might
"undermine the whole structure of publishing." Sadly entrenched businesses
can't always see the more-profitable future, and demand things like DRM to
protect their short-term profits at the expense of consumers and culture.

~~~
joshlegs
It does sound reminiscent doesn't it. I tweeted the story because
music/movie/software execs need to learn a new business model. Entrenching
oneself in the old mind set is a good way to move into extinction.

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officemonkey
It's interesting to me that most publishers won't sell ebooks directly to the
public.

DRM not only protects the content but it also locks the customer into a
vendor. By the time the publishing industry decides to give up on DRM (like
they did with music), the landscape will be buttoned up by the big three (B&N,
Apple, and Amazon.)

~~~
dredmorbius
As Charlie Stross noted very aptly:

[http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-
static/2011/11/cutting-...](http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-
static/2011/11/cutting-their-own-throats.html)

~~~
smallblacksun
The publishers answer to the threat of Amazon.com was (allegedly) illegal
price fixing. [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/31/business/media/penguin-
and...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/31/business/media/penguin-and-
macmillan-deny-e-book-price-fixing.html)

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rnadna
A better title: "How paperbacks transformed the way _people_ read". Americans
were late in the game. The protagonist in the essay was a copycat. Apart from
the title, though, the essay is excellent.

