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Well, there are hardbacks and there are hardbacks I suppose. You’ve got the standard latest Pratchett or Rankin or celebrity confessional, standard dustjacket and paper, double the cost of a paperback but probably moderately to heavily discounted, and which will vary from being perfectly acceptable to being bound badly, more likely to end up falling apart and (ask any bookseller) a bugger to stack. Then usually around Christmas you’ve got the fans only exclusive boxed/slip-cased fancy artwork collector’s edition. The latest book in the Temeraire series that I picked up is a bit of an inbetweeny, non-glossy paper covers, a bit smaller than standard, bookmark ribbon, being presented as a luxury product but actually a slightly reduced price. Then there are the more prestige hardback formats (sometimes I think they’re described as Royal Hardbacks?), tightly bound, thick paper, they’re usually non-fiction or from an academic press I think; they’re great, there’s this solidity and heft about them that you don’t get with the standard ones. I’d much rather have that than fancy artwork.
I think it’s traditionally suggested that one of the main points of a hardback release is to garner positive reviews which can then be used to promote the paperback. Presumably someone at Picador has decided that the economics of that aren’t all that worthwhile. I thought at first that it might just mean they would switch to a Paperback Original style release, not quite a hardback, not always a trade paperback, but usually followed by a mass market paperback later on - which would be fair enough I suppose. But if they’re retailing at £7.99 it’s a more significant change, and at least one of the consequences would be that while bookshops might be happier to take a punt on an unestablished author’s new release in paperback because it’s cheaper, everything has to be co-ordinated for those first three months when the book is on the shelves, and after that it will have had its chance. No safety net of seeing how the hardback performs and marketing the paperback accordingly.
Purely personally, I don’t tend to buy many books firsthand these days, and tend to wait for the paperback when I do, but even so I’d hate to see hardbacks disappear completely. Partly that’s practical: hardbacks are really good for publishing tomes by Peter F. Hamilton and John Irving in one volume, paperbacks not so much - at least without much bending of spines. And for reference works, something that I’m going to want to refer to again and again is great to have in hardback if I can afford it. And partly sentimental: it is nice to have a good solid hardback to curl up with at home. From the collector’s point of view a first edition hardback can pass through several hands and still be fairly unscathed, a paperback again not so much, and it’s quite nice to think that we’d still have the first presentation of any given work in its original form. It would be quite an odd feeling not to have that. I mean, that probably means I should go and read more Benjamin or something, but sod it, there is something irreproducible about hardbacks, especially when you pick up an early edition of something and you can see how it first appeared before Marketing had much money to spend on it.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned the Kindle yet, which given the generally positive reviews of its usability, presumably once they’ve sorted out the range and price issues could start cutting into the traditional market for all paper based books. |
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