Darwination Posted July 7 Share Posted July 7 (edited) On 7/7/2024 at 9:59 AM, Surfing Alien said: 1939 in the USA. Pocket Books began in earnest with print runs of 100k per title after sold out trial runs of 10k for the first 10 titles. Yeah, 100k is solid but hardly taking over. I'm thinking more of Mickey Spillane selling millions. Do you know of some sort of data or chart that tracks total pb sales over the years? I'd be curious to see the trends. Edited July 7 by Darwination jimjum12 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pat Calhoun Posted July 7 Share Posted July 7 1950 important in this topic too as Gold Medal made PBOs (paperback originals) their thing whereas before PBs were mostly reprints of hardcovers, the rights of which could be had for a song. jimjum12 and Darwination 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Surfing Alien Posted July 7 Share Posted July 7 (edited) On 7/7/2024 at 11:49 AM, Darwination said: Yeah, 100k is solid but hardly taking over. I'm thinking more of Mickey Spillane selling millions. Do you know of some sort of data or chart that tracks total pb sales over the years? I'd be curious to see the trends. Pocket sold over a hundred million in their first couple of years. They even ran the number total on the top of the books for a while like McDonalds. They completely revolutionized publishing to the masses. Avon and Dell joined in 1941 and 1942 and all of publishing changed Edited July 7 by Surfing Alien Darwination 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darwination Posted July 7 Share Posted July 7 (edited) Wild, the Smithsonian point's to Penguin as the predecessor for Pocket, the Brits kicked off pbs?? https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/how-the-paperback-novel-changed-popular-literature-11893941/ The Smithsonian's also celebrating the design and branding which seems so bland to me A much better intro to the topic for me, though SF based: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/news-and-features/articles/rise-paperback-novel/ Edited July 7 by Darwination jimjum12 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarg Posted July 8 Share Posted July 8 (edited) Reclam and Tauchnitz were printing paperbacks in Germany in the 1800s. Westbrook and others were doing them in the USA in the late 1800s. Dime novels (originated 1860) can be considered paperbacks. I have a Reclam paperback of Tacitus's Agricola from 1900. Penguin was inspired by Albatross, another German brand that printed English books. Pocket Books was probably inspired by the success of Penguin, not their brand, or their books. Pocket Books introduced unique illustrated color covers, something that Reclam, Tauchnitz, Albatross, and Penguin did not do. Edited July 10 by Sarg typo Darwination, Pat Calhoun, jimjum12 and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Surfing Alien Posted July 8 Share Posted July 8 On 7/7/2024 at 8:22 PM, Sarg said: Pocket Books was probably inspired by the success of Penguin, not their brand, or their books. Pocket Books introduced unique illustrated color covers, something that Reclaim, Tauchnitz, Albatross, and Penguin did not do. 100% ... The winning combination. jimjum12 and Darwination 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimjum12 Posted July 16 Author Share Posted July 16 (edited) You guys are almost all readers still. I promise not to do this often. I just finished the 4th and final installment of Carlos Ruiz-Zafon's masterful series 'The Cemetary of Forgotten Books." It is set in Spain, in the years slightly before and during Franco's fascist regime. It's a kind of Gothic Horror, with a seasoning of Noir, that can turn the series into quite the page turner. This final volume is an 800-page behemoth, filled with magic and despair. If you haven't given CRZ a try, you can no longer say I didn't try. If you want an entry into his style that's a tad more manageable, "City Of The Mist", is an anthology of 11 snippets that parallel, but don't ruin the series. It is CRV's last published. I believe. GOD BLESS ... -jimbo(a friend of jesus) Edited July 16 by jimjum12 Darwination 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OtherEric Posted July 16 Share Posted July 16 On 7/16/2024 at 11:08 AM, jimjum12 said: You guys are almost all readers still. I promise not to do this often. I just finished the 4th and final installment of Carlos Ruiz-Zafon's masterful series 'The Cemetary of Forgotten Books." It is set in the years slightly before and during Franco's fascist regime. It's a kind of Gothic Horror, with a seasoning of Noir, that can turn the series into quite the page turner. This final volume is an 800-page behemoth, filled with magic and despair. If you haven't given CRZ a try, you can no longer say I didn't try. If you want an entry into his style that's a tad more manageable, "City Of The Mist", is an anthology of 11 snippets that parallel, but don't ruin the series. It is CRV's last published. I believe. GOD BLESS ... -jimbo(a friend of jesus) I just bought the first book purely on your recommendation, jimbo. jimjum12 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pat Calhoun Posted July 16 Share Posted July 16 my wife raved about 'Shadow of the Wind' so I picked it up intending to check out the first few lines and ended up devouring the whole utterly delicious first chapter. way beyond fabuloso. jimjum12 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimjum12 Posted August 1 Author Share Posted August 1 On 7/16/2024 at 3:37 PM, Pat Calhoun said: my wife raved about 'Shadow of the Wind' so I picked it up intending to check out the first few lines and ended up devouring the whole utterly delicious first chapter. way beyond fabuloso. His final effort before his death is The City Of Mist and is just so very impressive. It picks up themes and threads that were present in the 4 part Cemetary of Forgotten Books series. This appears to be that one volume not available in an autographed edition. I really do like the hardbacks, but man, do they take up space. If I was still able to work, I'd focus more on some of them. You can get some badazz stuff from the 1800's in first editions for a couple hundred bucks. Me. I'd chase Arkham House if I still had it in me. Gnome Press and a couple other publishers are also noteworthy. Here's a new one that was very reasonable, the hallmark of my collection these days. I'm sure this is fairly common, but I don't see tons available in grade. Probably just too cheap and too cool to sell. GOD BLESS ... -jimbo(a friend of jesus) Pat Calhoun and OtherEric 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OtherEric Posted August 15 Share Posted August 15 A couple recent items in the Pulp Connections thread reminded me that I wanted a copy of this one. It's not particularly hard to find once you look, but I love that there's a Bradbury book with a Chas Addams cover that was done, if not specifically for the book, at least for one of the stories in the book. jimjum12 and Pat Calhoun 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OtherEric Posted August 26 Share Posted August 26 Not in great shape, and a later printing... but I never see the Scribner Heinlein juveniles in the wild, so at $10 I had to give it a good home: jimjum12, Book Guy and Pat Calhoun 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
