Matthew Hunter wrote: > It's certainly not lower prices. Paperbacks have been going UP. Um, yeah. Sigh. > I have heard it expressed that publishers are having trouble making money on > small-run paperbacks, and thus are reluctant to publish them. They are pushing > to either move their authors to hardcover (stepping up) or cease publishing them > at all (stepping down), whereas in the past it was possible to stay in the middle > (midlist). One word: Remaindering. A pernicious practice that is one of the things killing the paperback industry. (Remaindering is where a store can buy lots of extra copies of a paperback, then if they don't sell, strip the cover off and send them back to the publisher for full credit. Books can get stripped straight out of the original box, without even hitting the shelves.) > I'm not sure what's causing this problem. I just wish it would stop. See above. Not to mention the big publishers that seem to be intent on killing their goose. I keep thinking that between just-in-time publishing and the Internet there _must_ be a way to satisfy both the authors and the readers, cutting those middlemen out of the loop. Haven't seen it happen yet, though. Oh, hi, SKZB! I've been reading your stuff since the beginning, with the original publication of Jhereg. I still have that paperback, although it's beginning to be a tad yellowed. (As am I, for that matter. :-/) You're one of my favorites. (My very favorite author of all time was Roger Zelazny. I got to meet him and hear him read just once, in Dallas a long time ago; he read his first "Croyd" story. I tell you, I miss him every time I pick up a book.) -- Frank Mayhar frank at exit.com http://www.exit.com/ Exit Consulting http://www.gpsclock.com/