Book Talk
A conversation about prices and formats that has nothing to do with an app
My 20yo son came downstairs to get a cup of coffee. His best friend, who is staying with us for a few days (he now lives in Vancouver), was still asleep. My son was holding a mass market paperback in his hand.
“What’s that?” I asked, never passing up a chance to see a book.
He shrugged one shoulder. “We went to Indigo yesterday and I bought some books. Who would have thought I’d be spending my money on physical books?”
Who is this guy? For years, he shunned all my recommendations for reading material. He discovered audiobooks during his first year in uni, when he was looking for something to occupy him on the train ride. He also discovered listening to audiobooks made the time pass faster as he lifted boxes, stocked shelves, and hauled cans to the cooler in the liquor store where he worked part time.
It’s rare that I can have a conversation with him about books. So when I can, I inject interesting things, like “Hey, did you guys hear about Brandon Sanderson’s Kickstarter?”
They hadn’t heard, didn’t know who Sanderson was, and listened as I told them the science-fiction/fantasy writer raised over $41 million in a 30-day campaign.
Two months later, my son tells me he’s been listening to book 1 of the Mistborn trilogy. A month after that, he comes home with a box set of of the Stormlight Archive (4 books, since the fifth wasn’t released until Dec 6). Two weeks after that, he’s in the kitchen with a mass market version of Elantris, Sanderson’s first book, the one he just bought at Indigo.
We had a fun conversation about book prices and formats. He prefers mass market over hardcovers or trade paperbacks. I explained to him that in the “olden days” (i.e. mid 1980s), books were released in hardcover and then a year later the mass market version came out. Trade paperbacks were almost exclusive to literary fiction, high-brow presses and advance reader copies. By the mid-1990s, publishers were releasing trade paperbacks about six months after the hardcover came out and the format took off. I prefer trade paperbacks (and all of my own books are in that format), but lately, I feel the pull of the mass market model.
Mass market is small and compact and easy to throw in a backpack or purse. On my bookshelf, I have four of the five books of A Song of Fire and Ice (aka Games of Thrones) stacked beautifully, a mini wall of fat volumes. On top rests a round, glass paperweight with a blue swirl inside. I like how it looks, different from all the vertical spines.
In the way back when times, mass market was always cheap. I remember a spinning rack in my grandparents’ convenience store that held paperbacks I wasn’t allowed to read. Priced at $0.75 to $1.00, I recall the covers had a man and women embracing, or an oversized rodent, or a mystical world with whorls and swirls that didn’t make sense to an eight-year-old.
Now, prices have increased to a point where I think twice about my purchases. I know, this is ironic, given how hard I work to sell my own books. Hardcovers are now $40 and up, trades are $21 or more, and mass market starts at $15.99. Not too long ago those prices were $25, $16, and $7 respectively.
Still, I kind of love that my kid is choosing to spend his money on actual books lately. I took the newly-bought book from his hand and flipped it open. The smell of fresh paper and ink wafted up.
“Can I borrow this?” He hesitated, and I knew exactly what he was thinking. I wouldn’t ever lend out a new book either, regardless of whether it was $7 or $17. Life doesn’t work that way.
Instead, I am now on the waitlist for Elantris at the library. It might be time for me to finally read some Sanderson.
xo Dana
What I’m reading
I almost gave up just after 100 pages, but something is pulling me into Chuck Wendig’s latest, Black River Orchard. I can’t put my finger on it, but this novel about magical apples transforming people has me invested. I know there’s a lot of uncomfortable gore and nightmarish scenes ahead, so maybe I won’t read this one before going to bed. It’s been ages since I read horror and I suspect I’ve become a little soft.
