The Problem with Pricey Paperbacks

Long ago, hardcover books were cherished, proudly displayed on bookshelves in the sitting-room, while paperbacks resided on bedside stands and bathroom sinktops. Hardbacks were like theatrical releases, while their paperback counterparts were like VHS tapes, released a year later, easily scratched and easy to distinguish from the real thing. No longer. They've shed their shame.

Now, softcover books have never looked more beautiful. Go into any bookstore and feel the delicate rough texture of the pages, unevenly cut so that the sides form ridges your thumb can rest upon as you turn the page. The text appears in clear distinct fonts with perpendicular serifs. The words are printed on acid-free paper so they'll last for decades. But while paperbacks' former low-rent appearances once made them accessible to people who couldn't afford the hardcover, their pricey facelift has closed them off to that audience. And that's a shame.

In the publishing world, there has always been a separation between books marketed for intellectuals and the books for the masses, high literature and genre fiction. Instead of blurring over time, in recent days those distinctions between intended audiences are becoming sharper than ever, and again it's because of paperbacks. Once upon a time (really just a decade or two ago), it seemed you could buy almost any title with any sort of wide appeal, no matter how hifaluting, no matter how thick, in a format called "mass-market paperback" -- this is the ubiquitous airport bookstore size, 7 inches tall and $6.99. Nowadays, however, more and more literary books are foregoing the mass-market format for what's known as a "trade paperback," creamy, beautiful, variable in size, and at least twice as expensive as mass-market. Those books are very likely to hold up for your great-grandson to read, but they come at a price that excludes most casual readers looking to purchase on a whim, and all readers who can't afford to pay $15 for a novel. Undoubtedly, the higher price and higher cache of these books support sales models that work out to the financial advantage of the publishers, despite the readers lost at the lower end. But this means that the democracy of the least expensive books, once a mix of high and low and the one place where Jonathan Kellerman and John Updike could sit side by side, is fast becoming the exclusive province of genre fiction. High literature now comes exclusively at high prices.

This price discrimination reinforces elitism in reading material. It's probably safe to assume that subscribers to the New Yorker and US Weekly have different books next to their beds. The more that prices reinforce this, the less reading material in common Americans will have. J.K. Rowling and Dan Brown have recently managed to buck this trend, writing books that have been read by nearly everyone; however, neither writes high literature, and both have had their books available in mass-market paperback. (This was true for the first three Potter books, though the last three have only been available in trade paperback.) In other words, the only universal fiction is non-literary fiction. That is not necessarily a good thing. Nowadays, people of different backgrounds follow different books, different magazines, different websites, different cable news channels; where there is no common experience, there is no shared truth. Discounting paperbacks so that more people read more of the same books won't make the country less politically polarized overnight, but it might help close the gap.

The dead-tree arts are fast approaching retirement age, while their digital relatives are rapidly gaining steam. Electronic versions of print publications are far more inexpensive, portable, and easily accessible. By the time electronic media fully supplant print, price will no longer be an issue, and association and reputation alone will determine who reads what. The importance of the mass-market paperback is in the notion that there are certain books that everyone might read, from the 9/11 Report to Shakespeare. The more we have in common, the better we trust each other, believe each other, understand each other. Making books more affordable is desirable on its own merits, because many people love to read but can't afford $18 for a book, like me. Making literature universally available, combating literary elitism and bridging the polarized divide, is a worthwhile goal entirely above and beyond sticker shock. I hope Random House agrees.

Comments

[GMT]

'Discounting paperbacks so that more people read more of the same books won't make the country less politically polarized overnight, but it might help close the gap.'

Fair enough. But presenting content in library-friendly format so that copies can be recirculated at a reasonable cost (again to people who don't buy everything - I certainly can't) has been a vital part of closing such gaps for much longer than the trade paperback has been around. ( I question that these books will hold up for three generations, too. They're glued, man.)

'The dead-tree arts are fast approaching retirement age, while their digital relatives are rapidly gaining steam. Electronic versions of print publications are far more inexpensive, portable, and easily accessible.'

That's not an accurate assessment of the current situation. Electronic texts are not truly 'accessible'; there is a digital divide all over the world, e-readers, their formats and their platforms are still a mess, and publishers are not selling their e-content cheaply enough to even make it a viable consideration yet.

A very interesting post, however - and one that is close to my heart as I wrestle with a huge paperback edition of Lowell's poems that is going to fall apart in six months, I reckon. (Why, oh why, isn't it in hardback? Or three 'lit paperback'volumes?)

[GoodbyeKitty]

Maybe the idea is to keep people from reading too much.

[LeftRight]

You forget, most americans either can't read or won't read any more...

[Indiana]

I just saw a headline about a survey saying 1/4 of all adults don't read books.

[dadw5boys]

You can really control a society easily if you keep their ability to keep informed of the world at arms lenght.
If they have to decide between food, housing and heat before even considering books and access fees for the internet. Just the fact that they are forced to take time and figure the cost in thier heads tells most people they have a restriction on how much information they can seek.

[jaybone23]

This is why I shoplift! No, really though. While I may (or may not) be kidding, most people only buy a couple of books a year, if at all, so it doesn't much affect them. For those of us who read incessantly, and when the library isn't keeping up with one's habit, this trend has certainly become a real pain in the ass. If I can wait, I'll use the internet to find a used copy of a book. I'll browse at a B&N-type store, but I try to spend my money at an indy (few left anymore) or the web. And while I know it's quality and not quanity, does it bother anybody to pay $15.95 (or more) for a trade paperback that's barely over 200 pages? There is Project Gutenberg and the like, as a previous poster pointed out (P's!) and those public domain classics tend to be published in inexpensive editions, but still...Alex, you're right on the money (see what I did there?) with this one!

[crutnacker]

I love trade paperbacks. Lately I've much preferred them to hardbacks because they're easier to carry around, typically have more up to date info (in non-fiction books), and their covers tend to be more attractive.

I also like mass market paperbacks.

What I hate it the new taller mass market paperbacks. They're awkward to hold and they're too expensive.

[NickJones]

Wow, I can't believe I'm the first responder. All in the timing, I guess.
As Gore Vidal said some forty years ago, the audience for the novel is dead, or dying. My father was of the generation that never read but for a purpose, the goal-oriented readers who read *instructive* books to rise in the corporate world or take strokes off their golf game, never fiction. I thank the Powers That Be that I took after my mother, who has always read for pleasure. Many of the generation after me that I've met are proud of being non-readers.
But there is hope for those have caught the literature bug. Many towns have used bookstores. The selection may not be as varied as when I lived near Cambridge, but I was still able to find some out-of-print Vidal, Richard Condon, and the early crime novels of James Ellroy. And there's always Goodwill and the Salvation Army.
If you have a computer and a taste for old books, i.e., in the public domain, you can always go to Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/), where they are dedicated to publishing as many ebooks out of copyright as they possibly can. There are some curious gaps here and there - Moliere's "The Misanthrope" is not available in either English *or* French - but on the whole, available writers are represented extensively, if not completely.
If all else fails, there's always the public library. As long as you live near a well-funded library, you can probably get your hands (and eyes) on nearly anything you might want. Not only will the best literature be available, even replaced if lost due to flood, theft or fire (as happened to my local library in Danbury, CT, a number of years ago), but the better libraries will do their best to order requests for their patrons.
So things are not totally bleak; it's all a matter of knowing the resources are out there and where.

[NickJones]

"Wow, I can't believe I'm the first responder. All in the timing, I guess."

Oops. Well, it was empty when I wrote that!

[JohnQdotinfo]

I think this is a part of the whole Barnes and Noblification of book selling. Buying a book is no longer a simple retail transaction, it's a luxury experience. If you're going to B&N and are going to sip your latte while standing next to shelves made of deep, rich wood, then the books must be as grand as their surroundings.

I will admit to enjoying the B&N experience a lot. But, I can see how for readers on a tight budget it could be pretty painful.

[Indiana]

I'm also a B&N fan--I usually go there every weekend to hang out. I don't often buy books there--but recently I found a good one marked down to $2.00.

[Adirondacker]

I haven't bought a new book in years, those that I do buy tend to be reference works - cookbooks and manuals. Gave up buying novels a long long time ago.... because my local public library is willing to do inter-library loan with a wide range of libraries. I can get almost anything I want, almost always in hardcover and for free.

[realitytrumpsbull]

I think book publishers should try to keep 5-dollar paperbacks on the shelf. You'll sell a lot more of em at 5 bucks a pop then you will at 12 bucks, and I really don't need the EZ-Read Reader's Digest font, there, thanks anyway.
One benefit of a book over a computer, you can chuck it full-force at a brick wall, and still pick it up and read it. You can sit on it, pour coffee on it, and you can still read it. Try all that with a computer. Oh, and books don't require batteries, can be enjoyed fully using only solar power, are 100% biodegradable, and
provide hours of commercial-free enjoyment.
Books don't 'crash', can't pick up data-killing viruses, don't require updates, and are most importantly very very difficult to censor once in the hands of the general public. A free press
is Good Stuff, the more of those we have, the better. Oh, and if you DO end up burning your books, say to keep warm in the winter or demonstrate your opinion of the author, you won't wipe out half an amazon forest with the
toxic gases. Literacy is Good Stuff, better for you than video games or the Idiot Box by far...oh, and finally: You can't get sucked into 15 hours of Party Poker etc, and there are no clickable ads or other distractors...

[fferret]

I've thought this paradox perplexing for years: How do we as a society encourage reading and yet no one can afford to buy a book? I think the publishers are going to have to find a new business model. Thank $DEITY for bookstore chain discounting.

[Indiana]

Bravo for your post on how pricey paperbacks have been getting to be--and this is true not only regarding the high-end trade paperbacks but even the mass-market ones which rarely can be found for under approximately $8.00 these days. Regarding the lion's share of the fiction I read, once is enough--so I frequent the public library.