Paperback/Mass Market Paperback?

I've recently gotten heavily into the Star Wars Expanded Universe and I'm enjoying reading and collecting the novels already. So far I have two EU books:

Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter
Republic Commando: Hard Contact

I've really enjoyed reading both of these books and I've ordered another five novels already from Amazon.co.uk (as I'm from Scotland). However, all thenovels I've got are labelled as being Mass Market Paperback. They are a few pounds cheaper (and often more readily available) than the Paperback formats.

I was wondering if there was much (if any) of a difference in size, quality etc between the two formats. I'd like my collection to have a bit of continuity to it so I don't want to order anything that isn't Mass Market Paperback if it clashes with the others in my collection.

Cheers guys.

 

When ordering from Amazon, the mass market paperback is usually the American version, which is cheaper with all conversion rates and stuff applied. The base paperback for Amazon (the more expensive one) is the UK edition. The US editions are a fraction smaller in height than the UK editions, which can lead to a disrepancy in height, which is a little pronounced on the shelf, and occasionally have slight spine / cover variations, but nothing too drastic.

 

I just bought Tim Zahn's Manta's Gift, a mass market paperback. It has a cheap looking appearance about it, but tha again, so did the Medstar Duology I perused in the shops.

 

There are two main types of paperback. The first is the Trade Paperback, which is essentially any oversized paperback. They're typically 7 inches long by 5 wide.
Mass Markets are the smaller version of paperbacks, at about 5 by 3.

 

Mass Markets also generally have cheaper paper and ink quality, and different cover material.

 

I wonder what factors decide what given book is to be paperback or mass market paperback. Something like Ruins and Hard Contact are naturally viewed as MMPs . . . but why wasn't a total joke like Balance Point mass market paperbacked too?

 

Generally, stuff like that is determined when the book is contracted initially. And there's actually a fairly simple logic for determining which is which under both Bantam and Del Rey (at least, up until the 9-booker)....