DANIEL ESTRIN, HOST:
There was a time when you could walk into any drugstore or grocery store and pick up a paperback book from one of those spinning racks. You know, your Stephen Kings, the bestsellers like "Jaws," the gothic horror series "Flowers In The Attic" by V.C. Andrews, pretty much any romance by Danielle Steel. These were called mass-market paperbacks, and their era is coming to an end this week. Esther Margolis has worked in the publishing industry for decades. She's the publisher of Newmarket Books, and she joins me now. Welcome to the program, Miss. Margolis.
ESTHER MARGOLIS: Happy to be here, Daniel. Please call me Esther.
ESTRIN: Well, Esther, let me start with this question - the large book distributor ReaderLink has decided to give up on mass-market paperbacks. Were they just no longer profitable?
MARGOLIS: I'm sure it's purely a business decision. The so-called mass paperback, remember, is a format that's around 4 by 7 in size. It fits into those spinning racks that you mentioned or these wire racks in supermarkets, etc. But what happened in the mid-'80s because of the expansion of bookstores and new shelving that went up, the paperbacks got larger, so they were no longer this convenient size that could cheaply be made and fit into these wire racks all over the place. Those are known as trade paperbacks. They have a different business model. Royalties are different for them. Discounts are different for them. The paper is better. The physical production is different, and those started to become a kind of product that became very desirable by consumers and made a lot of sense to retailers. So from the mid-'80s on, that format kept growing and growing, moving the wire racks out of retail space and these wooden shelves going in. And ultimately, here we are at 2025, you rarely see wire racks now. You might see them in the airport now.
ESTRIN: Right. Mass-market paperbacks started in the U.S. in 1939. So what was the appeal?
MARGOLIS: The fact that it was going to be cheap. The first books were a quarter, and the editorial had value because pocketbooks was able to license really good books or good writers like Mickey Spillane from hardcover publishers. So the combination of the three things, the physical size, accessibility. And it was cheap, and it gave you entertainment or information.
ESTRIN: Were there authors whose careers really took off because of the reach of mass market paperbacks?
MARGOLIS: Absolutely. Kurt Vonnegut is a good example.
ESTRIN: Oh.
MARGOLIS: Kurt actually started original paperbacks originally. And, of course, Jackie Susann and "Valley Of The Dolls" was the marker at that point.
ESTRIN: Esther, were you a fan of mass-market paperbacks?
MARGOLIS: Loved them.
ESTRIN: Yeah. Did you buy them?
MARGOLIS: Oh, my God, yes. I mean, that's what you bought. You know, Ian Valentine used to go around. He was a legendary publisher, and he would say the classic of tomorrow was the bestseller of yesterday. What the mass paperback gave you was incredible opportunity, which today, unfortunately, you don't really have. You have the technology that enables you to get books anytime, you know, on the internet, e-books. But if you want to browse, you go to a bookstore. So it's a much more limited availability now of the physical book.
ESTRIN: Well, you spoke with Publishers Weekly, and you said, I believe that mass-market paperbacks democratized America.
MARGOLIS: Yeah. I do believe that.
ESTRIN: What do you mean exactly?
MARGOLIS: You could be anybody of any kind of background. And for basically the equivalent of a dollar or two, you know, you could be educated. You didn't have to be in a structure. You didn't have to be an elitist. People who grew up only knowing schoolbooks and realizing that they could actually get entertained and informed by these little paperbacks, you could pick them up at the schoolbook fair. You could pick them up at a local gas station. You can't really do that today. You can't.
ESTRIN: So as you watch the era of the mass-market paperback go, are you sad?
MARGOLIS: I'm very sad about it. I've been sad about it for a while. Even during the '80s, when it started to really shift, I was sad because it really - like you asked before, that you could actually establish a total unknown. Today, thank God, you have TikTok and BookTok. They could take somebody unknown and somebody can just get on a camera and say, I love this book, and next thing you know, you have Colleen Hoover or somebody. But that's what you could have done in the past paperback that you can't do really today. To me, Stephen King is a great example. I mean, his whole career, I don't know what - how that might have been built otherwise, if not for the mass-market paperback.
ESTRIN: Well, Esther Margolis...
MARGOLIS: Well, Daniel Estrin.
ESTRIN: ...Publisher of Newmarket Press. It's been a great pleasure speaking with you and thank you for paying tribute to the mass-market paperback that may soon be no more.
MARGOLIS: Thank you. Well, lovely for me, and thanks for letting me review some of my wonderful times that I had in this world.
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