Envisioning the future, as I sometimes do, I was wondering whether my next book should come out in hardcover or as a paperback original. Normally, authors don’t have a choice. The publisher makes the decision. However, writers can and do express preferences. In the best situations, those preferences are given consideration.
When my agent was vetting Harlem Redux, she came back with two offers, one from Simon & Schuster and one from Random House. The advances were virtually the same. The difference was the offered format. Random House was talking paperback, but S&S was talking hardcover.
In retrospect, I don’t remember what instinct told me to do. I do recall asking around. The proverbial wisdom was that hardcover was better, much better. No doubt about it, because you attract the eye of prominent reviewers. Way back when, people assumed that the words between sturdy covers are worthy and enduring; while those between flimsy softcovers are not.
I went with the hardcover.
I wouldn’t make that choice today. Times have changed, I’ve changed. I’ve realized, for one thing, that as much as I love suits, I’m a jeans kind of girl. I wear them nearly every day. And I write in a jeans kind of genre, one in which people buy several books at a time and really go for jeans kind of prices.
Maybe the topic occurs to me because of my own reaction to hardcovers this weekend. As mentioned in a previous post, I attended the first Murder 203 mystery conference. It was wonderful. The organizers did an excellent job of making the panelists’ books available for sale. As I perused the literary delights available for purchase, I found myself looking longingly at the hardcovers, but in every case, I passed them over for the affordable mass paperbacks.
Affordability. That was the issue. It’s a crucial one these days. There are many who will still splurge on fully-priced hardcovers, but there are very many who won’t.
Also, I must admit that I’ve never been enamored of hardcovers. They’re heavy, bulky, unfriendly to one’s pocket or purse. (I do love some of the smaller format hardcovers, though. They’re adorable.) And, while I’m sure that hardcovers are better than paperbacks in attracting influential reviewers, I have to say that I’ve rarely made my book choices according to the opinions of professional reviewers, so that particular argument underwhelms me.
A couple of years ago, I met an agent who liked one of my manuscripts and thought she could sell it. Wonderful. I told her I wanted it to come out as a mass paperback — not a trade paperback, but mass paperback, the kind that would fit nicely into a jeans’ pocket. She was perplexed. Now why would I want that? I made the affordability argument. She waved it away. “I could see this quite easily as a hardcover,” she said. Well, I could, too. That wasn’t the point. The point was one of crass commercialism. I wanted a book that was buyable, that was attractively priced, seductively affordable. For unrelated reasons, she and I didn’t end up working together, but the experience comes to mind as an example of a particular stance that I’d say should be reconsidered.
The usual strategy seems to be to put a book out in hardcover, let it garner some nice reviews, then put it out in paperback — trade paperback. The trade still retains some of the physical beauty and literary gloss of the hardback at roughly half the price. Then, if the book does a brisk business in trade, it might come out as a mass market paperback.
This strategy doesn’t work for all books, though. For one thing, trade paperbacks are relatively expensive. Given the choice between an expensive TPB by a unknown author and an inexpensive MMPB by a bestselling one, many readers will forgo the thrill of discovering a new voice and grab the cheap, familiar one.
Furthermore, by the time, a title has worked its way through the various formats, it might no longer be on bookshelves (in any format), promotion has considerably subsided, and readers are on to the next big thing. That initial tidal wave of interest is gone and with it a significant number of potential mass market sales.
In today’s economic climate, it can make more sense to worry less about catching the eye of critics, than catching the eye of buyers.
Harlem Redux was never released as a mass market paperback. It went from hardcover to trade paperback. At one point, the book totally disappeared. Then Simon & Schuster made it one of their print-on-demand titles. An unsigned hardcover is now listed at a whopping $54 and the trade paperback is up for an equally stunning $21.95.
I still try to promote the book, but it feels like pushing a boulder uphill.
I would love for S&S to re-release Harlem Redux
as a mass market paperback. But wider availability at a lower price is
unlikely unless there’s increased demand. However, increased demand is
extremely unlikely without a more accessible price. The result is a
catch-22 that translates into a loss for everyone.
So, in the moments before I drift off to sleep, I dream of a mass market paperback. While other authors dream of a hardcover, I fantasize about softcovers and retail prices that hover around $5.99. Hmmm. I get goose pimples just thinking about it.
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You made some excellent points here – thanks for this post. For me the price point for books hovers around $11 – if a book is around $10-$12, I’ll snap it up. If it’s more than that, I request it at the library or wait to find it in a used bookstore.
I happened across a description of A.S. King’s DUST OF 100 DOGS (which is paperback) – it was intriguing; it was around $10. I bought it, loved it, have ranted about it – friends have succumbed, the local library is buying it (saying “Where did you find this book?”). All because it was paperback – and affordable.