I went for a little time killing in Borders and came across something odd, the $9.99 mass market paperback. Mass markets are the “regular” paperbacks that we all think of when the term paperback is used. Typically you will see new releases by a major author show a price bump. When I worked at the book store the last bump I saw was to $7.50. It was a Tom Clancy book. Typically you will see the catalog for that author also get reissued with new cover art and a bump to this new price point. “Lesser” books - and I use the term because it is an industry term, not mine - like SF and Romance will stay a $1 or so behind this unless it is one of their authors is being “bumped”.

Any who - the mass market price has sat at the $7.99 price point for some time, including the just released Da Vinci Code, which I thought for sure would be the one released at the higher price of probably $8.99. Instead some CATALOG (aka OLDER) books by major authors are being reissued as $9.99 MM paperback. Now the kicker here is they have “changed” the format. It is the same width but about an inch taller. So in theory they can publish LESS pages. Still same crappy binding and paper quality, just 2 dollars more for a book that is just a little bit larger and that largeness is very inconvenient. Now the price on MM is so close to Trade Paperbacks (the larger, higher quality ones that usually run $13-$16 depending on length) that it is almost dropping the MM from validness.

Here are some examples of books “bumped”.

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