3 ms·
I feel like the page size in mass market paperbacks has also increased in size since high school/college. Perhaps it's just that I'm buying less-cheap prints?
by systems_glitch 4y ago
I feel like the page size in mass market paperbacks has also increased in size since high school/college. Perhaps it's just that I'm buying less-cheap prints?
- yamtaddle 4y agoThe "trade" paperback size seems to have largely taken over from mass-market. Not completely, but there are definitely a lot more that size on the shelf than there used to be. Except in some genres, like romance, a section of which you can spot from a mile away because of all the short, uniform, mass-market volumes—but I think even there a lot of newer material's coming out in trade, and maybe hardback, and never seems to get a mass market format release. Especially true for the material marketed at the younger end of romance readers. I expect interest in carrying books around is lower now. Pack it for vacation, maybe take it to the coffee shop or park, but how many of us still value a portable volume you can keep on you all the time, every day, just in case you have a moment to read? Phones fill that role, and then some, now. When you get ahold of one of those slim mid-century mass-market-size sci-fi paperbacks, and happen to be wearing a blazer or other jacket, you quickly discover why that length + size combo was so successful for popular fiction. It fits neatly in an outer jacket hip pocket, and hardly even messes up the drape of the fabric. Perfect for the 1940-1950s fella on-the-go. Can't do that with a trade paperback, nor with monster 400+ page Stephen-King-esque mass market volumes. A trim 200-280 pages in mass-market format is just the thing.