I have every Gold Medal paperback that John D. MacDonald ever produced. They're falling apart, but I still pick them up to enjoy a master of the craft.
Mass market paperbacks were my favorite format, too. Inexpensive, easy to carry, and often sporting vivid cover art, they filled my bookshelves in my youth.
I guess this was inevitable but it doesn't make it any less sad. I've always felt that I would have loved writing paperbacks in that era. Maybe the Kindle is replacing some of that for writers now, self-publishing their own genre novels.
Actually there was a whole cadre of self-published authors writing directly on, and for, the Kindle. I've written about this in a forthcoming (January) book.
Yup, I know a lot of those authors and it's something I'm getting into as well.
Another great thing about the Kindle: the rights to many of the out-of-print paperbacks from the 1940s to mid-60s are now in the hands of small publishers and others who are making them available again. Fantastic stuff.
Thanks for this insightful piece. And readers will suffer even more than writers. I've railed against the trade paperback for years. They claimed readers WANTED a bulkier paperback that was less portable and cost more money? Ridiculous. E-books may be the new MMPB, but they're often almost as expensive as the trade paperback and you never get to really enjoy the covers. I think it was a dumb move killing off the MMPB, just as it was dumb when the record labels tried to kill off the 45/single format to force people to buy an entire album on CD for $16 or so just to get one song. Corporations never learn. How about a list of all your MMPB originals, esp the Gold Medal ones?
Truer words never spoken, Michael. But in this digital world nothing analog can stay.
I loved Richard S Prather's witty thrillers and published them when I launched my e-book publishing company, But my all-time favorite Gold Medal author was Charles Williams. What a writer!
I've never read Charles Williams! It seems like Hill Girl, River Girl and the books turned movies Dead Calm and The Hot Spot are often mentioned as among his best. Is there any one you'd suggest to start with?
Can't go wrong with Dead Calm but he had an extensive bibliography. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Williams_(American_author) There's one I can never get out of my mind except for the title. About a man framed by his lover,l he does time and when he gets out of prison he comes after her - only to discover she had an accident and suffers from amnesia. He's got to get her to remember him so she will understand why he's going to kill her.
If a reader wants a less expensive ebook, then going indie is the way. Most indie writers price our ebooks at $5.99 or less. Definitely under $9.99 for those who list on Amazon, simply because going over $9.99 locks us into a 35% royalty instead of a 70% royalty. By the numbers, it works even after paying for publishing details such as covers, editing, and either formatting or formatting software. Depending on visibility, of course. And many indies end up doing their own formatting or using a friend with either Vellum or Atticus software to format. Some of us make our own covers using BookBrush or Canva. The real outliers will use PowerPoint for covers and format in Word.
While other distributors don't have Amazon's restrictions, the reality is that most indies who are not Amazon-exclusive will price most of their ebooks between $2.99-$9.99 to get that 70% payout on sales. My pricing is basically $1.99 for short stories, $3.99 for novellas, $4.99 for novels, and $7.99-$9.99 for omnibus/box sets. I'll occasionally drop novellas and novels to $2.99 for either first in series or promotional sales. I don't do $.99 except for a few older short stories that I haven't gotten around to repricing yet because that tends to be the black hole of crappy work, generally, and I've never sold enough at that price point to make up for the loss of revenue.
Some will argue about the lack of gatekeeping and perceived lack of quality associated with indie/selfpub authors. In my experience, that is not generally the case. I can pick up just about any tradpub ebook these days and find typos and grammatical errors (then again, I have spent time as a proofreader and editor so I have a somewhat educated eye), so for me those arguments don't fly. What the general reader *will* find in selfpub work are the works that don't fit in the tradpub box...unorthodox combination of genres, a focus on characters that don't necessarily fit the latest fads, amongst other things.
(Note: been in the biz for well over twenty years; have a Writers of the Future semifinalist placement; also have a collection of rejects reading "love your voice, love your work, can't sell it." I write niche work verging on the mix of SFF with neoWestern and usually established, long-term relationships, only my neoWestern is the Pacific Northwest. Which...since it's not Southwest, means tradpub doesn't consider it viable.)
You're welcome! I've self-published my books since 2011 so I've been around for a LOT of the selfpub developments. These days I'm adding short stories to the selfpub mix as well given the degree to which the magazine market is constricting.
Professionalism among mass-market authors? Well, some a lot more professional than others. There were lots and lots of mass-market authors, especially at the more low-rent end, who were not very professional. Also, audiobooks have had a big role in the most recent decline of the mass-market. Not that the mmpb needed much of a push at this point.
I’m assuming you’re THE Richard Curtis who wrote Squirm? Bought that very edition nearly fifty years ago!
Since retiring, I’m now reading much more and have returned to my teenage hobby of paperbacks from that era, which seemed to provide an infinite choice of authors and subjects.
Yes, all the books in that photo are mine including Squirm. Halloween, the tie-in for the first movie, is my favorite. There's another THE Richard Curtis, the distinguished British screen writer. But I had the name first. :-)
It's rare because it went out of print forty years ago and became expensive. It was finally released two years ago in an illustrated edition https://tinyurl.com/3drwkf4m currently selling for $99 but that's the cheapest I know of and I'm sorry.
Yes, let's definitely not forget the cover art.
I have every Gold Medal paperback that John D. MacDonald ever produced. They're falling apart, but I still pick them up to enjoy a master of the craft.
Thanks. I learned how to write reading Gold Medals.
Mass market paperbacks were my favorite format, too. Inexpensive, easy to carry, and often sporting vivid cover art, they filled my bookshelves in my youth.
The rear pocket of my jeans will never feel the same without a scifi thriller stuffed into it.
I guess this was inevitable but it doesn't make it any less sad. I've always felt that I would have loved writing paperbacks in that era. Maybe the Kindle is replacing some of that for writers now, self-publishing their own genre novels.
Actually there was a whole cadre of self-published authors writing directly on, and for, the Kindle. I've written about this in a forthcoming (January) book.
Yup, I know a lot of those authors and it's something I'm getting into as well.
Another great thing about the Kindle: the rights to many of the out-of-print paperbacks from the 1940s to mid-60s are now in the hands of small publishers and others who are making them available again. Fantastic stuff.
Looking forward to that book!
I was one of the pioneers in restoring out of print books in digital formats. That's exactly what my book is about.
Disciplined, businesslike, pride, professionalism.... Wow! That's enough to make this genre(s) writer feel doggone special. Thank you, Mr. Curtis.
You exemplify all those virtues. Plus you're a mensch.
Thanks for this insightful piece. And readers will suffer even more than writers. I've railed against the trade paperback for years. They claimed readers WANTED a bulkier paperback that was less portable and cost more money? Ridiculous. E-books may be the new MMPB, but they're often almost as expensive as the trade paperback and you never get to really enjoy the covers. I think it was a dumb move killing off the MMPB, just as it was dumb when the record labels tried to kill off the 45/single format to force people to buy an entire album on CD for $16 or so just to get one song. Corporations never learn. How about a list of all your MMPB originals, esp the Gold Medal ones?
Truer words never spoken, Michael. But in this digital world nothing analog can stay.
I loved Richard S Prather's witty thrillers and published them when I launched my e-book publishing company, But my all-time favorite Gold Medal author was Charles Williams. What a writer!
I've never read Charles Williams! It seems like Hill Girl, River Girl and the books turned movies Dead Calm and The Hot Spot are often mentioned as among his best. Is there any one you'd suggest to start with?
Can't go wrong with Dead Calm but he had an extensive bibliography. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Williams_(American_author) There's one I can never get out of my mind except for the title. About a man framed by his lover,l he does time and when he gets out of prison he comes after her - only to discover she had an accident and suffers from amnesia. He's got to get her to remember him so she will understand why he's going to kill her.
Ha! That's a great set-up. Thanks for the info.
Tradpub ebook pricing is unrealistic. Read indie writers.
Can you elaborate?
If a reader wants a less expensive ebook, then going indie is the way. Most indie writers price our ebooks at $5.99 or less. Definitely under $9.99 for those who list on Amazon, simply because going over $9.99 locks us into a 35% royalty instead of a 70% royalty. By the numbers, it works even after paying for publishing details such as covers, editing, and either formatting or formatting software. Depending on visibility, of course. And many indies end up doing their own formatting or using a friend with either Vellum or Atticus software to format. Some of us make our own covers using BookBrush or Canva. The real outliers will use PowerPoint for covers and format in Word.
While other distributors don't have Amazon's restrictions, the reality is that most indies who are not Amazon-exclusive will price most of their ebooks between $2.99-$9.99 to get that 70% payout on sales. My pricing is basically $1.99 for short stories, $3.99 for novellas, $4.99 for novels, and $7.99-$9.99 for omnibus/box sets. I'll occasionally drop novellas and novels to $2.99 for either first in series or promotional sales. I don't do $.99 except for a few older short stories that I haven't gotten around to repricing yet because that tends to be the black hole of crappy work, generally, and I've never sold enough at that price point to make up for the loss of revenue.
Some will argue about the lack of gatekeeping and perceived lack of quality associated with indie/selfpub authors. In my experience, that is not generally the case. I can pick up just about any tradpub ebook these days and find typos and grammatical errors (then again, I have spent time as a proofreader and editor so I have a somewhat educated eye), so for me those arguments don't fly. What the general reader *will* find in selfpub work are the works that don't fit in the tradpub box...unorthodox combination of genres, a focus on characters that don't necessarily fit the latest fads, amongst other things.
(Note: been in the biz for well over twenty years; have a Writers of the Future semifinalist placement; also have a collection of rejects reading "love your voice, love your work, can't sell it." I write niche work verging on the mix of SFF with neoWestern and usually established, long-term relationships, only my neoWestern is the Pacific Northwest. Which...since it's not Southwest, means tradpub doesn't consider it viable.)
Thanks for this really insightful analysis, Joyce
You're welcome! I've self-published my books since 2011 so I've been around for a LOT of the selfpub developments. These days I'm adding short stories to the selfpub mix as well given the degree to which the magazine market is constricting.
Terrific piece, Richard. The great days of mass market publishing were truly great.
Thank you, Lou. You above all understand how deep the loss is.
Great perspective, history, and analysis Richard. Thank you.
Thank you very much!
Professionalism among mass-market authors? Well, some a lot more professional than others. There were lots and lots of mass-market authors, especially at the more low-rent end, who were not very professional. Also, audiobooks have had a big role in the most recent decline of the mass-market. Not that the mmpb needed much of a push at this point.
Thank you, Jim.
RC
I love MMPBs for how comfortable they are to hold and read. I miss them already having to buy other versions of several series!
Yes, there's an MMPB-shaped patch on the rear pocket of my jeans.
I’m assuming you’re THE Richard Curtis who wrote Squirm? Bought that very edition nearly fifty years ago!
Since retiring, I’m now reading much more and have returned to my teenage hobby of paperbacks from that era, which seemed to provide an infinite choice of authors and subjects.
Yes, all the books in that photo are mine including Squirm. Halloween, the tie-in for the first movie, is my favorite. There's another THE Richard Curtis, the distinguished British screen writer. But I had the name first. :-)
And I knew your name first. I like one TV credit of the other Mr Curtis and loathe his movies!
I’d like to read your Halloween novelisation but it’s hugely collectable now. Did you adapt it from an early script?
It's rare because it went out of print forty years ago and became expensive. It was finally released two years ago in an illustrated edition https://tinyurl.com/3drwkf4m currently selling for $99 but that's the cheapest I know of and I'm sorry.
Not your fault at all!