code meets music

Release them in paperback at the same time (or instead of) hardback.

Currently, publishers initially release books only in hardback and the paperback edition will follow, sometimes up to a year later. Any publicity that the book might attract will happen at the initial release; newspapers dedicate pages and pages to reviewing new hardbacks while around a dozen new paperbacks (fiction and non-fiction) will share a single page.

I mostly buy paperback books, not only because they’re cheaper but because they take up less space and I find them easier to read. I’m not short of things that I’d like to read, so having access to a book sooner isn’t really something I’d pay extra for. It is a little annoying though, that when I’m looking for new things to read, it’s very difficult to find things that are new to paperback- I often end up adding interesting-looking hardbacks to my Amazon wishlist thinking I’ll check back later, but normally forget.

Well, it turns out I’m not alone; the publisher Picador have decided that from next year it will launch “almost every novel as a £7.99 paperback”.

The Guardian had the following to say on the matter:

Since 2001, booksellers have doubled the discounts offered on hardback novels and some have sold fewer than 100 copies. Even Graham Swift, the Booker prize-winning author of Last Orders, has sold fewer than 4,000 copies of Tomorrow, his latest novel, since its debut in April. From spring, Picador will use paperbacks to launch new books from all of its literary fiction writers, unless they have a guaranteed profitable hardback market. It estimates that 80% of its literary fiction will be published in this way.

It’s interesting that I’ll happily pay more for special editions of albums and those that come in interesting boxes, but prefer paperback books.