Growing numbers of publishers are opting not to print paperback versions of books, forcing customers to purchase pricier hardcovers, according to a report.
Fewer paperback books are being printed each year amid the rising popularity of audiobooks and eBooks, The Wall Street Journal found.
In the past, paperback releases would come out about a year after hardcovers and allow writers a second chance to bump their sales.
‘When I began in the business you could expect retailers to look at hardcover sales and order twice that in paperback,’ Gail Ross, a literary agent at William Morris Endeavor told the outlet. ‘Now it’s just the opposite—half as much, at best.’
Now, publishers are choosing to skip paperbacks to save on printing costs and make more money on hardcover sales.
Publishers, authors, agents and retailers all earn more on hardcover title, and authors usually get royalties of about 15 percent of the hardcover price, according to the Journal.
‘If retailers aren’t ordering the books at a high-enough volume to ensure some financial return, publishers won’t bother printing the paperbacks,’ said Dan Conaway, a senior literary agent with Writers House.
‘[For authors] profoundly demoralizing that a book that might have taken four years to write and was published with such promise is done after five months.’
Growing numbers of publishers are opting not to print paperback versions of books, forcing customers to purchase pricier hardcovers
The trend appears to be hitting nonfiction paperbacks particularly hard. New adult nonfiction paperback titles fell 42 percent from 2019 to 2024 according to database Bowker Books in Print.
Author Ian Buruma doesn’t have a paperback version of his popular book ‘The Collaborators: Three Stories of Deception and Survival in World War II’ that was published nearly two years ago.
‘Of course one wants one’s books to go into paperback,’ said Buruma. ‘Publishers make their decisions based on commercial realities, and there’s very little I can do about it.’
However, the country’s largest bookstore chain, Barnes & Noble, said they are trying to boost nonfiction paperback sales by selecting one a month to promote and buy ‘tens of thousands’ of copies for each pick.
But the company’s senior director of books said publishers today are putting their emphasis on fantasy and ‘romantasy’ paperbacks rather than nonfiction.
‘If they were getting behind more great nonfiction titles, we’d carry them,’ she said.
Literary agent Andrew Wylie said one contributing factor is that Amazon.com, the country’s largest online bookseller, sometimes charges less for hardcovers than for new paperbacks.
One example the WSJ found is a 2023 hardcover copy of Jean M. Twenge’s ‘Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What They Mean for America’s Future,’ cost $18.69 on Amazon in late February, while the new paperback edition, published in January, cost nearly $2 more.
Fewer paperback books are being printed each year amid the rising popularity of audiobooks and eBooks
An Amazon spokeswoman said they base make their prices bases off their competitors.
‘We work hard every day to offer customers low prices,’ the spokeswoman said.
