Size a Plus in Sales of Paperbacks

The headline generated by a recent study of American book buying was that the number of adult books bought in 1998 declined by 3% from the year before--the first such drop since 1990.

The fine print of the annual survey by the Book Industry Study Group indicated that size matters.

Mass-market paperbacks, those pocket-size books commonly racked at airport newsstands and drugstore checkouts, accounted for nearly two-thirds of the decline in copies sold. Hardcovers made up much of the difference, while the sale of oversize paperbacks, so-called trade paperbacks, which usually measure about 5-by-8 inches, held steady year to year. In addition, half the books sold via the Internet were trade paperbacks.

The relative strength of the trade-paperback format explains why publishers are using it in innovative ways--for books other than literary novels, which traditionally have appeared in this size.

Take, for example, a new action series by the popular Clive Cussler (with Paul Kemprecos). “Serpent,� the first of the stories about Kurt Austin and his team of underwater explorers, was introduced recently by Pocket Books in a $16 trade paperback and appears to be exceeding the early sales that Cussler routinely generates in higher-priced hardcovers. This presumably has happened because some of the mass-market audience have decided to pay a few dollars more for Cussler’s latest.

Ranked No. 7 Sunday on the New York Times’ paperback bestseller list, “Serpent� has been back to press and now has 500,000 copies in print (long before the book comes out in a mass-market edition).

Another trade paperback original that recently went on sale is “Eyes Wide Open,� a memoir of the late Stanley Kubrick written by Frederic Raphael, who collaborated with the filmmaker on the screenplay of the upcoming movie “Eyes Wide Shut.� The Ballantine title reads like a mystery, as Raphael chronicles his first visit to the reclusive Kubrick’s British country house (“an air of pungent desolation�) and re-creates conversations in which the director seems to extract much while offering little information in return.

“We felt very much that it was a filmgoer’s kind of book, a film buff’s book, and it’s also short [at 190 pages],� explained George Lucas, Raphael’s editor at Ballantine.

Questioning the New Yorker: Playwright and activist Larry Kramer, never one to shy from an issue that may involve the gay community, says it broke his heart to page through the New Yorker’s recent fiction issue and conclude that “my people are not in it.� In a June 22 letter that he faxed to New Yorker editor David Remnick (and shared by e-mail with dozens of friends and media players), he asked: “How can you put out an issue of 20 short stories without the inclusion of one single gay and lesbian author? . . . I might point out that of all the short stories that do appear in this issue, the only references to anything gay are negative ones.�

On Monday afternoon, Remnick said he had written a reply to Kramer earlier in the day. The editor added that while he could enumerate gay and lesbian writers, editors and subjects that have been part of the New Yorker, he sought to assure Kramer that he takes his concerns seriously.

Meanwhile, Remnick nears his first anniversary as editor July 13 with an issue this week that has drawn the kind of attention that some believe ended with the resignation of his predecessor, Tina Brown. Staff writer Jeffrey Toobin’s “Talk of the Town� report that “some old friends of the first family� believe Bill Clinton will run for the Senate from Arkansas in 2002 received prominent play in Monday newspapers and stirred continual chatter on the talk-radio and cable-news circuits through the evening.

People Does Books Too: The weekly magazine is launching a line of heavily illustrated paperback biographies called People Profiles--�bookazines,� People is calling them. The first one--Linda Lee’s bio of Tom Hanks--will go on sale Tuesday. List price is $4.99; a printing of 500,000 will put the book on newsstands and at thousands of checkout pockets around the country.

In this latest so-called brand extension from People, there will be one bookazine a month. The August bio will be of Julia Roberts. People leaves open the possibility that future books may contain ads.

Paul Colford’s e-mail address is [email protected].

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* Sunday: Ira Berlin on “Runaway Slaves: Rebels on the Plantation�; Benjamin Schwarz on “Remembering Slavery�; Anthony Platt on prison stories; and William H. McNeill on why history matters.