8 ms·

How Paperbacks Transformed the Way Americans Read

99 points by NickPollard 14y ago

officemonkey 14y ago
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 14y ago
  As Charlie Stross noted very aptly: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/11/cutting-their-own-throats.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/11/cutting-...
  - officemonkey 14y ago
    He said it better than I, that's for sure.
  - smallblacksun 14y ago
    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-macmillan-deny-e-book-price-fixing.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/31/business/media/penguin-and...
hartror 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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.
eikaterine 14y ago
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.
- verisimilidude 14y ago
  I don't think hardcovers are going anywhere. The hardcover book already represents a premium product. That may remain the case even if/when ebooks rot out the paperback market. They make great gifts, look good on shelves, hold up in libraries, etc.
- re_todd 14y ago
  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 14y ago
    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 14y ago
      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.
ankeshk 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudo-anglicism#Swedish for a list of Swedish's pseudo-anglicisms).
  - tgrass 14y ago
    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.
acabal 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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.
rnadna 14y ago
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.

99 points by NickPollard 14y ago

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 14y ago
As Charlie Stross noted very aptly: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/11/cutting-their-own-throats.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/11/cutting-...
- officemonkey 14y ago
  He said it better than I, that's for sure.
- smallblacksun 14y ago
  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-macmillan-deny-e-book-price-fixing.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/31/business/media/penguin-and...

hartror 14y ago

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 14y ago
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.

eikaterine 14y ago

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.

verisimilidude 14y ago
I don't think hardcovers are going anywhere. The hardcover book already represents a premium product. That may remain the case even if/when ebooks rot out the paperback market. They make great gifts, look good on shelves, hold up in libraries, etc.
re_todd 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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 14y ago
    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.

ankeshk 14y ago

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 14y ago
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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudo-anglicism#Swedish for a list of Swedish's pseudo-anglicisms).
- tgrass 14y ago
  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.

acabal 14y ago

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 14y ago
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.

rnadna 14y ago

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.