Last Call for Mass Market Paperbacks

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 07:37:00 -0400

Jim Milliot, Sophia Stewart, PublishersWeekly.com, Dec 18, 2025

I didn't have much money when I was young so for me reading meant buying used mass market paperbacks. These were at best temporary books, and would often fall apart. But I wasn't building a library to decorate a house! Anyhow, with the arrival of the internet I was able to read as much as I wanted essentially for free, and I stopped buying them (I remember the point in time exactly - I had read the first two Game of Thrones books and was waiting for the third to come out in paperback... and it never did (maybe it did eventually, but I waited years). No way I was going to pay for a hardcover, so that was the end for me.) Anyhow, Ben Werdmuller writes, "ReaderLink, the largest book distributor in America, is going to stop carrying them - and we'll notice the effect immediately."