Publishers aim for the next big thing
If you're a baby boomer stinging from being blamed for Social Security's problems, now there's something else that's your fault: the decline of the mass-market paperback book.
No, it's not your taste, it's your eyes. Admit it: You just can't read that tiny type any more.
But help is on the way. Several publishers are rolling out a new, larger mass-market format to save your eyes and keep you buying.
Despite occasional hot sellers such as ''The Da Vinci Code," book sales have grown little in the past few years, and mass-market paperback sales have declined steadily. One big reason, it seems, is that baby boomers, historically the biggest mass-market buyers, increasingly find those little books too hard to read.
Mass-markets are the thick, squareish paperbacks -- mostly entertainment fiction -- that you stick in your pocket or purse and read on the subway, airplane, or beach. You might buy them in a regular bookstore, but more often you pick them off metal racks in convenience stores, airport newsstands, warehouse stores,
It's a tried-and-true format. But something is wrong. According to the Book Industry Study Group, a publishing research organization, unit sales of mass-market paperbacks have fallen steadily in recent years, from 432 million books in 1998 to 406 million in 2003. The organization projects a further drop for 2004, when fully reported, to 404 million books.
Publishers, meanwhile, are scrambling to come up with a new format. Several -- including Penguin, Pocket Books, and Harlequin Romance -- have announced new lines of boomer-friendly paperbacks in the past few weeks, which some in the business have dubbed ''mass upperbacks." Other publishers are watching closely before joining in.
''We decided we should change the mass-market design, for the first time in a very long time," said Leslie Gelbman, president of mass-market paperbacks for the Penguin Group. ''We've decided to make the size a little taller and slimmer, and the paper is better." The type size is also larger, with more space between the lines. The price will be $9.95, up from the typical $7.99 for the standard size.
''We've done consumer research," said Liz Perl, Penguin's head of paperback marketing, ''and found a segment who find the mass-market format uncomfortable. People say, 'I need new glasses.' "
Penguin recently tested the new format, called Penguin Premium, with Minette Walters's ''Disordered Minds," a suspense novel priced at $10. ''The positive response has been overwhelming," said Perl. Starting in July, such classic mass-market authors as Clive Cussler, Maeve Binchy, and Nora Roberts will appear as Premiums.
Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, is also rolling out its new Pocket Books Premium Editions in July, priced at $9.95. Authors will include Barbara Delinsky, Ann Rule, and Sandra Brown -- all mass-market stalwarts.
''The older end [of readers] have expressed dissatisfaction with the smaller type of format," said Louise Burke, executive vice president and publisher of Pocket. ''Our research shows that people are willing to spend more to get more quality."
If boomers can't read the little paperbacks, publishers say, younger readers don't want to. ''The younger readers have been conditioned to buy trade paperbacks," said Burke, ''readers of 'chick lit,' for example. Some of those readers don't want to read mass-market."
Mass-market paperbacks are historically more closely related to magazines than to books. They were mostly genre fiction -- police novels or westerns -- printed on cheap paper called ''ground wood," which turned yellow and fell apart after a while. Paperback publishers would crank them out in vast numbers and unsold copies would be returned at the end of a month, along with magazines, to be pulped -- hence ''pulp fiction." After World War II, better literature began to come out in paperback. These were the so-called trade paperbacks -- called ''trade" because they were marketed through the trade, as in bookstores -- as well as newsstand racks.
Even so, the distinction wasn't always obvious. There were paperback lines that looked and were priced like mass-market titles but carried top-flight fiction. Joseph Heller's ''Catch-22," Ralph Ellison's ''Invisible Man," and John Updike's ''Couples" sold millions in mass-market editions for as little as $1.25. William L. Shirer's ''The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," at more than 1,200 pages, was a mass-market blockbuster in 1960.
But, gradually, serious fiction and nonfiction migrated to trade paper, which became classier in physical quality, with original cover designs, larger sizes, and higher prices. Mass-market became more restricted to thrillers, mysteries, and science fiction, as well as romance and westerns.
The classier trade paperbacks, such as Alfred A. Knopf's Vintage Books and HarperCollins's Perennial Books, are increasingly popular for serious fiction and nonfiction, but aside from Internet sales, they're sold almost exclusively in bookstores. While not every city, town, or rural area has bookstores, they all have drugstores, convenience stores, and supermarkets, which is why the new ''upperbacks" still have to fit in metal racks. ''In small communities," said Gelbman, ''that's where people buy their books. We don't want to lose those readers."
You'll find all the formats at book superstores, though not necessarily at independents -- and not at drugstores or supermarkets. At Barnes & Noble at Downtown Crossing, there's a long low wall of mass-market titles just inside the door, packed with $7.99 thrillers by such authors as Cussler, Tom Clancy, or Danielle Steel. Arrayed across the top of the shelf are trade paperbacks, including ''One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, at $14, and Jhumpa Lahiri's Pulitzer-winning ''Interpreter of Maladies," for $13.
Even Harlequin Romance, whose mass-market sales have been soft lately, is getting into the act. But to Harlequin it's not just the eyes that are getting older. Starting in July a new Harlequin line will appear, called ''Next." Like the other ''upperbacks," the books are taller, a bit pricier ($5.50, up from the standard $4.99), and easier to read. But, as the name suggests, the stories will focus on romance with heroines at the ''next" stage of life: Their kids are grown, they may be widowed.
''I think they're a wonderful hybrid between the mass-market size and the trade size," said Tara Gavin, editorial director for the Next series. ''As I sit here with my reading glasses, I think this format is different and new and will attract readers, such as myself, in the next stage of life."
David Mehegan can be reached at mehegan@globe.com.
