Times: Publishers Hurrying Trade Paperbacks to Market

We chose to bypass traditional hardcover publishing and go right to trade paperback and digital formats for our new book, God's Favorite Prayers. The Times writes (Julie Bosman, "Paperback Publishers Quicken Their Pace") that the publishing world is embracing the accelerated publication of the paperback book edition. It gives many suggestions and explanations for this trend, ending with these ideas:

...E-books have made price an issue for publishers who are weighing the timing of a paperback. While there is often a huge gap between the cost of a new hardcover (say, $25) and its e-book edition ($13), paperbacks and e-books tend to be within a few dollars of each other, leaving many publishers to wonder if cost-conscious shoppers are reading e-books right away rather than waiting for the paperback.

“I really do think that e-books are part of the reason for this trend of hurrying up that paperback,” said Carrie Kania, the publisher of Harper Perennial and It Books. “You don’t have to wait for a lower-priced version of that book now. I think we need to move more quickly in general.” ....

As bookstore owners pointed out, readers love paperbacks.

“It’s definitely making the consumer happy to have the paperback available sooner,” said Peter Aaron, the owner of the Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle, an independent store. “If there’s one form of printed book that will survive, if there was only one, it would be the trade paperback.”

We agree with Peter.