I miss mass markets SO HARD they fit in your pocket!! you can take them anywhere!!! they don't hurt your hands!!!! - ThreadSky

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kadoore.com • 28 days ago

I miss mass markets SO HARD
they fit in your pocket!! you can take them anywhere!!! they don't hurt your hands!!!!

god i miss mass markets. as a species we're meant to hold a paperback one-handed while we eat breakfast cereal. the bath? the beach? why not! it only cost $7.99

Comments

profiterole-reads.bsky.social•28 days ago

I'm reading one right now, from The Hollows series by Kim Harrison. And I still get them for the Mercy Thompson and Alpha & Omega series by Patricia Briggs. They're all long urban fantasy series. I'm not sure other genres still have them.

kadoore.com•28 days ago

Tor was experimenting with having some of their more commercial SFF as mass markets... and then COVID hit
My understanding is the shuttering of various printers in the US made MMPB unfeasible after that

cstross.bsky.social•28 days ago

Yes but I don't miss THE mass market, with 50-60% of the books being pulped, unsold, after 90 days!

What I think you want back are A-format paperbacks—the small ones which were sold via the mass market distribution channel, to distinguish them from trade books (which weren't pulped but returned).

kadoore.com•28 days ago

Fair!

cstross.bsky.social•28 days ago

Interestingly, the British mass market system collapsed in 1991 or 1992 (blame Robert Maxwell) so all British A-format paperbacks are sold as trade. Because there's no mass market any more there's no risk of booksellers getting confused and ripping the covers off the returns!

kadoore.com•28 days ago

Anyway, I briefly got to taste the joy of having my own book out in MMPB and it was really, really cool

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