I think it's safe to say that in colloquial usage, trade paperback=large format paperback for the purposes of the discussion.
True, but it's also important to remember that "trade paperback" is a term of art as well, that has important implications for the distribution process.
So you published those for bookstores, who will order them; you assume that you're not going to get those books out through IDs into grocery stores, etc., and you go ahead with the larger format. Someone like Jordan or Goodkind, though, will sell into grocery stores, etc., so even if they're long, you want them in the mass market format.
Sure. Of course, the immediate context of the original remarks was that of the dealer's room at a con, which I think is somewhere in between a book store and a grocery store. On the one hand, they're selling to an audience who will buy better-quality books, but on the other hand, they have to haul all their stock with them. The extra hassle of dealing with large-format trade paperbacks probably isn't worth it (even with the higher sale price (which is partly due to the distribution issues...)).
I ended up buying a half-dozen large-format paperbacks at Worldcon, but they were all books that exist only in that format (mostly from small presses that don't do anything else). Outside of those, the stock for sale was almost exclusively hardcovers and small mass-market paperbacks, which offer better return for their mass.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2004-09-10 05:17 pm (UTC)True, but it's also important to remember that "trade paperback" is a term of art as well, that has important implications for the distribution process.
So you published those for bookstores, who will order them; you assume that you're not going to get those books out through IDs into grocery stores, etc., and you go ahead with the larger format. Someone like Jordan or Goodkind, though, will sell into grocery stores, etc., so even if they're long, you want them in the mass market format.
Sure. Of course, the immediate context of the original remarks was that of the dealer's room at a con, which I think is somewhere in between a book store and a grocery store. On the one hand, they're selling to an audience who will buy better-quality books, but on the other hand, they have to haul all their stock with them. The extra hassle of dealing with large-format trade paperbacks probably isn't worth it (even with the higher sale price (which is partly due to the distribution issues...)).
I ended up buying a half-dozen large-format paperbacks at Worldcon, but they were all books that exist only in that format (mostly from small presses that don't do anything else). Outside of those, the stock for sale was almost exclusively hardcovers and small mass-market paperbacks, which offer better return for their mass.