Trade Paperback: a response to the ebook issue?

[RLS]

Hi Nathan and virtuals...
Any new information about the popularity of Trade Paperback deals? I read what you wrote a while back on your blog, about it being reasonable for genre fiction to go directly to trade paperback, but do you think publishers are making more of these deals because of ebooks and the economy?
Are advances typically smaller (assuming it is a large house making the offer?) Do reviewers shun OTP? (Do reviewers always know the format of the book given that the arcs are in paperback?)
At first I looked down on the possibility of my book being offered an otp deal, but then I realized last year alone, I bought, I was Told There'd Be Cake and The Well and the Mine in original trade paperback, and wouldn't have taken the chance on either in hard cover.

[Nathan Bransford]

Hi Nathan and virtuals...
Any new information about the popularity of Trade Paperback deals? I read what you wrote a while back on your blog, about it being reasonable for genre fiction to go directly to trade paperback, but do you think publishers are making more of these deals because of ebooks and the economy?
Are advances typically smaller (assuming it is a large house making the offer?) Do reviewers shun OTP? (Do reviewers always know the format of the book given that the arcs are in paperback?)
At first I looked down on the possibility of my book being offered an otp deal, but then I realized last year alone, I bought, I was Told There'd Be Cake and The Well and the Mine in original trade paperback, and wouldn't have taken the chance on either in hard cover.

There are different philosophies when it comes to trade paperback vs. hardcover debuts. On the one hand, the lower price point can help build an audience and younger adult readers especially tend toward trade paperback more than hardcovers, so you'll see especially books that are geared toward audiences in their 20s and 30s published as OTP. On the other hand, with hardcover you do tend to get more review attention (though there's hardly any reviews left at all anyway), and you get two shots - once when the hardcover comes out and then again with the paperback run.

I think you'll increasingly see more and more trade paperback debuts as publishers try to hit a lower price point. But we'll see what happens.

[RebeccaKnight]

As a mid-twenties reader, I'm absolutely more attracted to a book if it comes out in trade paperback :). $24-$35 has always been a little out of my price range for entertainment, so if I can get the same book right away for $12-$14, I'm a happy camper. Otherwise, I just buy the hardcover off Amazon for the same price.

Thanks for the info, Nathan! :)