When buying books on amazon.com, what is the difference between a "mass-market paperback" and a regular

Question

"paperback"? If there is one?

Answer 1

"Mass-market" paperbacks are published for a mass readership. They are typically smaller (hand-size), printed on cheaper paper, sold at newsstands, drugstores, groceries, and the like. They are the current counterpart of the old "pocket-books," so-called because you could take them around in your jeans pockets. Ordinarily they are reprints of books earlier published in hardback. The book will almost always have been in print a year or so before it is reissued in an inexpensive paperback--a shrewd marketing ploy.

"Trade" paperbacks on the other hand may vary in size, usually are printed on better paper with a classier cover. They are often called "soft-cover" instead of paperback by publishers. Of course, they cost more. Many books are initially published as trade paperbacks, or sometimes books are simultaneously published in hardback and "softcover." Serious literature, and even scholarly books published by university presses, are often issued in softcover, sometime exclusively in softcover.

It is not unusual for very popular books, especially fiction, to appear as hardbacks, trade paperbacks, and mass-market paperbacks. The paperback will be cheap and disposable; the softcover (or trade paperback) will be convenient, readable, and bound well enough to keep permanently. The hardback will usually come out first, be somewhat more elegant (maybe) and durable. Book collectors and rare book dealers will ordinarily be interested only in the first printing of the first edition of the hardback.

Answer 2

The previous answerer is correct about the size stuff... but mass market paperbacks are not usually previous hardbacks. Lots of books START as mass market books. These are the super common sized ones you buy everywhere.

Only really popular hardbacks move on to mass markets.

Answer 3

i know it doesn't answer your question, but the reason they're called mass market is because they were sold at train stations for people to read on trips, which is how they would get introduced to the 'masses.' They were cheap and readily available, and therefore, quite popular.

just a tidbit.