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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
by 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 agoFor 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 agoFrom 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.