Neil Serven

At Esquire, Isaac Fitzgerald (Dirtbag Massachusetts) writes a love letter to the paperback, noting that their durability and affordability make for a flexible, versatile reading experience:

But a paperback is built for adventure. Paperbacks are light, and—as already mentioned numerous times in this essay—foldable. If you forget one at the bar or by the swimming hole, you will not mourn, for the book will be found by somebody else, and if you haven’t finished it before you lose it, don’t worry—you can buy a new one for the price of a drink or two, not an entire meal.

A thing we have noticed since we acquired the bookstore is that carrying both used and new books means we see a wider range of customers. Our town is by no means wealthy, so one thing we like is the ability to have cheaper used options available for customers who only have a few dollars to spring on a book. When I am out and about I try to keep a small paperback with me for idle times like when I am waiting for a takeout order—a small one fits in my hoodie pocket, and I feel like my time is more richly spent getting in a couple pages of a novel then scrolling mindlessly on my phone.

But publishing seems to be getting away from mass-market fiction, even the genres. There was a time when the shelves in the mystery and science fiction sections of chain stores were cut to accommodate the old-fashioned John Grisham, Patricia Cornwell-sized mass-market paperback. Now publishers are tending toward trade-paper-sized titles even for genre writers like Ruth Ware or Louise Penny, and the cheap newsprint mass-market seems to be going extinct.

That doesn’t necessarily change my ability to read in public, apart from the need for bigger pockets. But it does affect the customer for whom we try to provide affordable books. Pricing has consequently soared as well—both due to the higher-quality paper and the seeming inflation that Amazon has caused. Publishers can inflate prices knowing that the largest retailer for books is going to discount them heavily as a loss leader. They’ve essentially taken a side against independent booksellers by default.