If you're into books, you might know that some books are called "trade paperbacks" and others are called "mass market paperbacks."
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These distinctions have their origins in the creation of the "mass market" for books - when enterprising salespeople like Tom Doherty and Ian Ballantine figured out how to sell books outside of bookstores.
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They pioneered a new "trim size" for paperbacks that could fit into "spinner racks" at grocery stores and pharmacies. This was a revolution in publishing. Prior to the mass market, only people who chose to go into bookstores were exposed to books.
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You can see how this is a self-limiting move: bookstores are great if you love books, but how do you fall in love with books if you never go into a bookstore?
Across America HUNDREDS of distributors sprung up to serve local stores.
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Across America HUNDREDS of distributors sprung up to serve local stores.
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Their unionized teamsters may not have had literature degrees, but they did get bonuses if the books they stocked in the racks' pockets sold, and they had to haul away unsold inventory.
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Small routes served by lifers who got to know the local literary tastes led to an explosion of different kinds of literature that was practically hand-sold to readers via these distributors' truck drivers.
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But after Reagan dismantled antitrust law, there were waves of grocery and pharmacy consolidation, leading to massive national chains like Walmart, Costco, K-Mart, CVS, Walgreens, etc.
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These companies weren't willing to open 400 accounts with 400 distributors. They demanded - and got - a matching consolidation in distributorship, until there were only about 3 national distributors doing the work that hundreds had done before.
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Centralized buyers for the chains led to an extinction-level event for the mass-market marketplace, replacing thousands of paperbacks sold nationwide at a time with mere dozens. Good-selling writers were wiped out, and their publishers started to merge, too.
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During the pandemic lockdown, most bookstores are shuttered or operating on an extremely limited basis, and this has led to a surge of mass-market purchasing from the big-box retailers.
nytimes.com/2020/07/22/boo…
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nytimes.com/2020/07/22/boo…
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A nation hungry for diversion has driven up sales for print books (it probably helps that after a day of screen-based work and Zoom meetings, the last thing you want is to relax with a fucking ebook).
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Grocery stores and pharmacies are getting much-needed boosts from these book sales, and they're also keeping publishers in business, so that's all good news.
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The bad news is that the mass-market's variety remains anemic compared to the incredible cambrian diversity of the pre-Reagan spinner racks.
But the good news is that the mass-market remains vital: there are millions of potential readers!
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But the good news is that the mass-market remains vital: there are millions of potential readers!
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Today, those readers might never visit a bookstore, even if they could. But if we can get them to fall in love, they might become lifelong readers. And the best way to do that is to return pluralism to the mass market.
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It's yet another way that surging support for antitrust and pro-competition regulation could benefit every industry - and every person who depends on that industry as a supplier or a customer.
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