I don’t have any memory of the first paperback book I bought. But I have many memories of the paperbacks I’ve loved.
Sitting in the school cafeteria reading Stephen King. Becoming lost in “The Hobbit” and “Watership Down.” Finding myself transported to another time with Edgar Rice Burroughs. Expanding my consciousness with Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison and Hunter S. Thompson.
While I’ve read some of my favorite authors and their stories in other mediums, the paperback will always be the format through which I solidified my love of books.
My first few paperbacks cost about 60 cents. Because I don’t buy as many paperbacks anymore — yes, this is another of those “I’m part of the problem” posts — I’m startled to see how much mass market paperbacks and trade paperbacks cost now. Nevertheless, I still buy them. My copies of “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and “Girl Who Played with Fire” are in paperback, as is “Devil in the White City” and others.
The photo above is of a homely bookshelf, tucked away in a spare bedroom in my house. It’s ugly as sin, the result of some cobbling-together my dad and I did 30 years ago. But it’s the home to most of my paperbacks. Dean Koontz and Robert Heinlein and John Varley and other favorites live there.
I love paperbacks.
So it was disheartening but inevitable to read the Crain’s New York Business article, “Trade paperbacks no longer worth the paper,” which notes that, with the rise of e-books, the publishing industry is pondering the future of paperbacks.
Paperbacks — specifically trade paperbacks here, but mass market paperbacks too, I’m sure — aren’t selling very well anymore. Sales were down 18 percent in recent months, even while e-book sales are up 8 percent. Electronic books are now 20 percent of sales for major publishers, notes the article, which was linked to on Twitter by publishing industry expert Sarah Weinman.
My point here is not to bury e-books — I’m for anything that promotes and perpetuates the reading of books — but to mourn the loss of paperbacks, if it comes to that.
The Crain’s article quotes a couple of people who say that trade paperbacks could be gone within a few years. Mass market paperbacks could follow, I suppose.
I can’t turn back the hands of time or reverse the flow of progress and wouldn’t want to do either. But I can’t help thinking, as we’re swept along in the current of change, about all the things that get lost along the way.
Used bookstores. The traditional platform for new authors. The cheap, fast read. The 10 cent paperback box at rummage sales, home of a million good stories.
Going, going …
keithroysdon 