Sometimes technological progress has an irritating habit of making life less convenient. For the latest disappointing example, we need look no further than a recent pronouncement from the American book trade: ReaderLink, the largest distributor of books to non-trade merchandisers in the United States, will cease to distribute the cheap and reliable mass-market paperback—undone by thin margins and dwindling sales, which in 2024 had fallen to just 3 percent of units sold at major retailers.
These cheap, pocket-size books measure roughly 7 by 4¼ inches and are printed on thin wood-pulp paper, glued rather than sewn. The lineage of the mass-market paperback runs back to 1939, when Robert de Graff’s Pocket Books began selling 25-cent books that could fit in the American commuter’s pocket. Soon, they found their natural home on the spinner racks of supermarkets, drugstores, and airport newsstands. At their peak in the 1990s, Americans were buying them in the hundreds of millions annually.
In its glory days, it was the most widely sold physical book format in the country: the book of beach bags and coat pockets. Now, thanks to a supply-chain decision, it will soon disappear. Sic transit gloria mundi.
