Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 10:17:08 -0500
From: "Michael Walsh" <MJW at press.jhu.edu>
To: <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: New mass market pb format
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

> nottenst at yahoo.com 12/23/04 8:41:31 AM >>>
>--- Ted White <twhite8 at cox.net> wrote:
>> I'm confused, Keith.   I'm confused that you can't
>> tell HTML email from
>> spam.  Surely the content is different.
>
>Maybe Keith is referring that most spam filters
>usually seem to count html email as spam.
>
>Regarding the new pricing/format scheme, one question
>is going to be whether there will be a better discount
>on the books from retailers.  I suspect not.  It seems
>that there is hardly any discount on trade or mass
>market paperbacks.  It seems that the discount on some
>hardbacks makes them less expensive than the same
>thing in trade paperback sometimes.

I believe the Downfall of Western Civilzation commenced with Robert
Haft.  Long time locals will remember him as the founder of Crown Books:
"If you paid full price, you paid too much."  implying of course that
booksellers were living the life of Riley.

>
>It seems that the logic of this move is not to sell
>more paperbacks, but to get a bigger profit margin on
>the ones they do sell.

There are a number of issues with mass market paperbacks.  Essentially
it takes a lot of copies being pushed to sell a few.  And returns are
via stripping the covers rendering the book unsaleable.  Trade pbs
atleast have the advantage of being recycled, either through reshipping
to another store, or remaindering (which atleast gets the author's name
out there).

mjw
>
>Neil