Is That A Book, Or Are You Just Happy To See Me?

[eggwards]

Just a mild question here. Of most of the books that I've purchased over the last year...which would be around 24, I tend to go through two a month, I find that the paperbacks are mostly the larger sized ones. Instead of the old, familiar pocket book which was about 6"x4" now books are often bigger and glossier, around 8"x6".

The last book I bought in the smaller size was Anne and Todd McCaffrey's latest Dragonriders of Pern book. i've read every one. It seems that many of the Sci-Fi books are still in the smaller size, but history and fiction are being produced not as pocket books, but just lighter-bound big books with larger type. Is this to avoid having to print large-print books? Is it to advertise, thinking that the cover of a larger book would be more noticeable?

The big problem is you can't just carry one of these books in your pocket. My current read, Christopher Moore's Bloodsucking Fiends is something I can barely fit in my coat pocket. Same goes with David Sedaris' Naked and Son of a Witch by David Gregory. History books like David McCllough's John Adams are pretty huge for a paperback. Perhaps I too and drawn to the larger books on the shelf?

Of course, with larger books, come larger prices. A Satr Trek paperback will run $8.00 while Sarah Vowell's Assasination Vacation will run you $12.00. Me thinks they are gouging - bigger book, same or fewer words, higher price. The American way, I suppose.

Comments

[starzcub.livejournal.com]

When I worked at the book store the issue was discussed. Supposedly it is better paper and better quality printing.... KEY WORD Supposedly.

[puckbear.livejournal.com]

Usually there are three types of books - Hardcover, Trade Paperback and Mass-market paperback. Sci-fi books, and best sellers you see in drugstores and airports are usually mass-market paperbacks, they have that similar small size. Trade paperbacks are the larger ones, they usually have better paper quality and larger type and are more like the hardcover editions.

[eggwards.livejournal.com]

I guess there must be a reason to sell the larger books...maybe they get more money, or they draw more attention with the larger cover. I do know that the Christopher Moore book is larger, but the paper quality is really bad - so they saved some there. The larger size books seem to be made for chick lit more than say sci-fi, so perhaps it's a handbook for the women, pockets for the men kind of thing.

[winbear.livejournal.com]

All the ones I've gotten recently are still mass-market paperback size, although when you hit 800+ pages, you kind of wish they'd just gone ahead and went with trade paperback size.

I just finished Todd McCaffrey's Dragonsblood. You could tell there wasn't much of momma's influence due to the level of technology and genetics discussion, however, the rest of the story felt just like a regular old Pern novel.

[eggwards.livejournal.com]

Well, I think War and Peace and Altlas Shrugged are both in pocket-sized books, if you are wearing cargo pants.

I'm sort of glad that Todd McCaffrey has picked a new era of Pern to write about, instead of using all of his mother's charactes, but yeah, the writing doesn't seem to have quite the feeling and characterization his mom has. He seems to be concentrating more on the style after Dragon's Dawn, with the technology, than before this was all revealed and the reader just thought it was a pre-tech civilization. Dragon's Kin, the colaboration was better than Dragon's Blood. i'm still waiting for Dragon's fire to come out in paperback.