Lit Del Rey Paperback Change

Saw this:



I have to say, I am disappointed for a few reasons:

-Changing book sizes will screw up my bookshelf.
-I purchase the paperback reprints because they are cheaper and smaller than hardcovers. Trades are bigger than mass market paperbacks making them less comfortable to hold, harder to pack, and more expensive.

I'm curious to see what the actual price increase will be, and how close they become to hardcover prices.

The only upside is that the "tall" mass market paperback format they currently use is very awkward (to me). I wish they had just kept with the Legends mass market paperback size.

If you are wondering what size a trade paperback is, The Clone Wars: Wild Space, The Clone Wars: No Prisoners, Clone Wars Gambit: Stealth, Clone Wars Gambit: Siege, and Lost Tribe of the Sith: The Collected Stories were all released in this format.

 

Yeah, I don't like that size. It looks cheap in a way the mass market paperbacks don't, but costs more! Worst of both worlds.

 

Annoying. I built bookshelves last year and had I known this I would've built them differently. Its gonna be a tight fit.

 

The worst thing about this tweet is how they say "see example of the two sizes below" but don't have a side-by-side size comparison nor any common reference point between the two photos

 

My friends, have you heard the Good News?

 

Trek did this a couple of years back. RRP went from £7.99 to £10.99

 

SW book sizes are consistently inconsistent.

 

Agree, it was a clunky rollout.

Current MMPB: 7-1/2" x 4-1/8" (Legends were 6-7/8" x 4-1/8")
Trade PB: 8-1/4" x 5-1/2"

Just not the same!

Ya, I figured. How much is a hardcover?

 

I never bought a single pre-Disney book for Kindle, but started doing it for most of the new ones.

Honestly... sometimes I regret it? I like looking at them on the shelf. And it's so much easier to pick up a book and compare different pages when you're looking something up. Almost every book that came out in the last year I ended up getting in hard cover because it's been bothering me.

I can totally see the benefit with Kindle and think it's amazing, but for Star Wars where we nitpick everything to death, having the real book is so much easier to reference.

 

Two words: text search.

 

Real books >>> Kindle any given second of any given day of any given year

This change sucks. Will it be applied retroactively to Legends novels too? Anyone know?

I have a total of about 60 mass market paperback Legends novels and it has been a long term goal of mine to collect most of them.

I would hate to have to order more than 50-70 books at the same time before they change them to that awful new size.

Plus, I wouldn't do it, cause I won't spend $1000 on a single order on books.

 

I don't know for certain, but I would be surprised if they did. Part of the reason they switched to the "tall" MMPB format for Canon was to differentiate from the traditional Legends MMPB size.

 

Ok I hope you are right. I might never buy the new canon novels anyway, though I still stand with those disappointed with the change.

 

I went through their Replies tab to see if they've answered similar questions about Legends novels:

 

Thank you, much appreciated.

I guess I ll start buying 2-3 mass market paperbacks per month then....

 

Yes, looks like a price hike from $13 to $22 (CAD) for me. Del Rey said they find the Trade format "a better reading experience". I'll just say it, seems like a cash grab to me, which I don't begrudge, but I don't have to like it - this change brings no benefit to this consumer.

I fear they're putting Star Wars novels out of the price range for this generation of kids. Mind you, they probably all have these new wiz bang datapads @CooperTFN is so high on.

 

I tend to buy very few Trek hardbacks, Picard: Last Best Hope was £15.99, the previous one I'd bought was DS9: Unity but that has to be over 15 years ago so price would be a good deal lower.

 

And that’s why I buy hardcovers only.

 

That's actually the DVD section, video takes up much more physical storage space.

 

Oh yeah, I use it all the time. But comparing different sections is difficult, especially if you want to go back and forth. I found I do this way more often than I realized. Also I'm more inclined to pick up a physical book and check something when I see someone post about it here than I am with Kindle.