paperbacks
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Paperback Writer
The goal of the paperback is therefore to reposition a book, capture a wider audience, or target a new market. We give books a second chance. In an essay at Lit Hub, Linda Huang, a graphic designer at Vintage & Anchor…
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How to Harlequin
Over at Jezebel, Kelly Faircloth shares a fantastic long form piece on the rise of the Harlequin romance novel, and how the brand became synonymous with a wildly lucrative if critically dismissed genre. From the original formula for woman-centered, alpha-male…
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The Roots of the Paperback
“Gutenberg may have invented the movable-type printing press,” but the father of the paperback is a different man: Aldus Manutius. As reported in the New York Times, an exhibition opened at the Grolier Club in Manhattan this week to commemorate…
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Branding Books
Even after spending so much time, effort and money on getting the dust jacket just right, most publishers go back to the drawing board to design the paperback version. That always seems to me like a waste of hard-won brand…
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Expanding The Book Universe
For the New Yorker, Louis Menand explores how the 1939 launch of Pocket Books “transformed the culture of reading.” The mass-market paperback line was one of the first to be sold at newsstands, a method of distribution that made pulp novels…
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How the Paperback Saved Civilization
With America gripped by the Great Depression, booksellers found that $2.75 put hardcover books out of reach for most readers. (A movie ticket then cost just 20 cents.) In 1939, with a full-page ad in the New York Times and…
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The Box it Came In
Like that whiskey bottle, a compelling package can make you want things you don’t.
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The Paperback Makeover
“Why are they still bothering with paperbacks?” This came from a coffee-shop acquaintance when he heard my book was soon to come out in paperback, nine months after its hardcover release. “Anyone who wants it half price already bought it on…