It is likely you're going for the stuff that the publishers have tagged as higher-quality stuff within the genre

Then I'm confused. Because it sounds like I'm making the same distinction the writer is. Not that I knew the terms, but statistically, it turns out I've not considered the mass-market stuff worth my time.

Um, since the average mm paperback retails for about seven bucks these days, they're not getting thrown away so easily.

Trades run in the $11 to $14 range, more often.

edit: and SHIT, I forgot why I wandered in. Very bad news, albeit expected: RIP, Spaulding Grey. They've pulled his body from the East River.

GoddamnitalltofuckingHELL.

Um, since the average mm paperback retails for about seven bucks these days, they're not getting thrown away so easily.

I never said that readers toss 'em, or that readers feel any less about them, or treat as throwaways. But do publishers design and sell them that way? Two words. Stripped. Covers.

Two words. Stripped. Covers.

Heh. Bantam paid the artist $30,000 for the incredibly complicated, multi-colour, cover-within-cover nightmare that was the (gag retch vomit) cover of "Fire Queen". They paid the artist, in fact, as much as they paid me.

It's a horrible cover, and ridiculously expensive, back when mass markets retailed for $4.95.

And suddenly "There's a Bimbo on the cover of my book" (filk by Maya Kaathryn Bonhoff) is going through my head....

The majority of genre stuff is originally published in mass-market format, with the biggest sellers having a short run in hardcover first. (Usually six months, as opposed to a year in hardcover for the trade lines).

This hasn't been true for any genre except romance and possibly horror since at least the mid-nineties, when SF and mystery publishers started shifting more and more books to an initial hardcover printing for library copies and review boosts. There has been a shift back towards paperbacks for initial printings as the industry tries to deal with changing markets, but it's been trade paperbacks in general. The Philip K. Dick Award is an SF award given out to best SF novel published as a paperback original (named because a lot of Dick's work was originally published so), and there was a lot of grumbling for several years because there simply wasn't a lot of SF/F being published as paperback original outside media tie-ins (and even some media tie-ins were published in hardcover).

And the $3 tag is ridiculous. Even children's, YA, and Regency romances (usually shorter and cheaper) are going for $4.99 ea. now; most adult mass market paperbacks are $6.99-7.99.

one of those $3 mass-market sci-fi/fantasy paperbacks.

Dude, where are they selling those? 'Cause I want some. I can't remember the last time I paid less than $7 for a mass-market paperback.

If I spoke to the reviewer face to face, he might be able to convince me otherwise, but I do get a distinct "It's like sci-fi, except it doesn't suck!" vibe from that sentence.

The review is here, though if you're not a Salon Premium subscriber, you may hit an ad.

This hasn't been true for any genre except romance and possibly horror since at least the mid-nineties

You may be right -- that was about when my buying work shifted to academic presses, which definitely don't do mass anything ever, and since you're far more in touch with the genre market than I am, I'm willing to grant it. Because I'm odd that way, I'd like to see recent numbers on total numbers of titles in HC vs. original (any kind of) PB, though; also, my gut-level impression now that I'm out of the biz is that those trades are still pretty selectively chosen -- a certain kind of high courtly fantasy, anglophile mysteries, Butler, Dick reprints....

I think my comments on the perception of mass-markets in the highbrow review world, and the likelihood that the Salon reviewer was using it as a shorthand for genre fiction in general, still stand.

(And, yeah, it's been yonks since I've seen anything for 3 bucks. Le sigh.)

I think my comments on the perception of mass-markets in the highbrow review world, and the likelihood that the Salon reviewer was using it as a shorthand for genre fiction in general, still stand.

We all agree about this. He's just wrong.

And my impression is that tpb are a mixture of prestige (they're more likely to get reviewed than mm, and less than hc) and sales figures.

From Locus Magazin's list of forthcoming SF for the 8 major SF publishers in the US, for January and February 2004:

ACE

JAN 7 books - 1 hc, 1 tpb, 5 mm. Of the 5 mm, 2 were reprints from hardcover

FEB 7 books - 1 hc, 1 tpb, 5mm. Of the 5 mm, 3 were reprints from hardcover

BAEN

JAN 6 books - 3 hc, 3 mm. Of the hc, 1's a reprint of 2mm originals. Of the mm, 2 are reprints of older books and one's a mm original FEB 6 books - 3 hc, 3 mm. Of the hc, 1's an omnibus of mm originals. All three of the mms are reprints (not sure if from hc or previous paperbakcs)

DEL REY JAN 5 books - 2 hc, 1 tpb, 2 mm 1 mm is a reprint of prior books, old enough that I don't know if they had an hc printing; 1 is original The tpb is an original. FEB 3 books - 1 tpb (orig), 1 mm (reprint from hardcover, 1 mm orig

BANTAM JAN 1 book - 1 mm orig FEB 2 books - 1 tpb orig, 1 hc orig.

DAW JAN 4 books - 1 hc, 1 mm reprint from hc, 2 mm orig FEB 4 books - 1 hc, 1 mm reprint from hc, 2 mm orig

HARPERCOLLINS EOS

JAN 5 books - 1 hc, 1 tpb, 2mm orig, 1 mm reprint from hc, 1 tpb from hc FEB 4 books - 1 hc, 1 tpb reprint from hc, 1 mm reprint from hc, 1 mm orig

TOR

JAN 16 books - 5 hc, 3 tpb (2 from older books, 1 orig), 8 mm (all reprints from hc) FEB 17 books - 7 hc, 2 tpb (1 orig, 1 from older mm), 8 mm (1 reprint from older, 7 from hc)

TOR/ORB

JAN 2 tpb from older HC FEB - 0

WARNER ASPECT JAN 3 books - 1 hc, 1 mm reprint from hc, 1 mm orig FEB 3 books - 1 tpb orig, 1 mm reprint from hc, 1 mm reprint from older mm