‘We’re losing access’: America says goodbye to broadband paperback | books

Shelley Romero has early memories of going to her local supermarket and picking fiction books off the shelves. “We were very working class; my mother would work two jobs sometimes,” she recalls. “The appeal of books being cheaper, smaller and more portable was definitely important.“

For generations of readers, the gateway to literature was not a stuffy bookstore or a polished hardback, but a wire rack in a supermarket, drugstore, or railway station. There, among the gum and cigarettes, was a paperback copy on the market: squat, about 4 by 7 inches and cheap enough to be bought on a whim.

But the era of the “pocket notebook” is coming to an end. ReaderLink, the largest book distributor in the United States, recently announced that it will stop distributing mass-market paperback books. The decision comes after years of declining sales, from 131 million units in 2004 to 21 million in 2024, and marks the end of a format that had previously democratized reading for the working class.

“I don’t remember a bookstore,” says Romero, who grew up in the working-class, Latino, industrial city of Hialeah, Florida. “I had a bookstore in Miami Springs across the bridge but in Hialeah around us, what was within walking distance because we didn’t have a car, was Publix.” [supermarket] Sometimes we would get books from Goodwill [thrift store] also.

“They had this democratic aspect where you could find them anywhere, and I always felt like it was a pick ‘n’ mix kind of candy store where there was something here for everyone, whether it was a Harlequin romance novel or something very exciting like a sci-fi novel or a horror novel that you could pick up quickly.”

Now a New York-based literary agent, Romero owns an Amazon Kindle, which is about the same size as a mass-market paper book, but can store thousands of books instead of a single book. However, she feels that something has been lost. “Whether it was ink or paper, they had a certain smell, and that evokes great nostalgia for me and many others.

“We’re definitely losing access and that’s a huge thing right now, especially in this country, whether it’s defunding libraries, or banning books, or someone saying let’s get rid of 200 books because I don’t want my kid reading diverse authors.

“At the same time, when you look at, say, a kid-lite book, a 14- or 15-year-old is not going to be able to buy a hardcover YA book for $19.99 or $21.99, especially if they work minimum wage or have a babysitting job, so it becomes completely inaccessible when they could have just gone and picked up something like a mass-market paperback. That affordability was huge. It’s sad that “See.”

While paperbacks had existed earlier, the revolution actually began in 1935 with Allen Lane’s Penguin Books in Britain, which were allegedly inspired by his frustration at not finding something decent to read at a railway station. He introduced color-coded types such as orange for fiction and green for crime and sold them through non-bookstore outlets such as newsstands and WH Smith tobacco shops.

This format migrated to the United States in 1939 with pocket books, and took off during World War II when the US Army distributed millions of “Armed Services Editions” to troops. This program promoted a tremendous increase in literacy and appetite for form among returning veterans. Postwar paperbacks, often called “pulps,” were popular for their eye-catching, lively cover graphics to attract commuters and casual shoppers.

The genius of the format lies in its physical intimacy and portability, says Paula Rabinowitz, professor emeritus of English at the University of Minnesota and author of American Pulp.

“It has created a new technological explosion for this kind of group reading,” she says. “The whole idea was to make books less expensive than a 25-cent pack of cigarettes, which were often sold outside bookstores. I consider that an important technological intervention, certainly in the 20th century.”

“It wasn’t like the atomic bomb, but it was about technology that was accessible and democratized, and it was portable, and it was possible to own it, so first-time workers could have their own libraries, and it was transferable because since it only cost a quarter, you might give a book to a friend and pass it along. It was something that was open to anyone because young people had a quarter; almost anyone had an extra quarter.”

The distribution model was key. Unlike the paperbacks that were found in libraries, paperbacks were treated like magazines. They were stocked by wholesalers who replenished the shelves in tens of thousands of non-book outlets. This ubiquity meant that books were suddenly available to people who might never have crossed the threshold of the literary establishment.

This accessibility fueled the Golden Age of the 1960s and 1970s, creating cultural phenomena that are difficult to imagine in today’s fragmented media landscape. Works such as Jaws (enhanced by a Hollywood film adaptation), Valley of the Dolls, and Stephen King novels have sold millions of copies. But then came decades of decline.

The reasons are multiple: the rise of “trade paperbacks” (larger, higher quality, and more profitable), distributor consolidation, and the digital revolution. The smartphone has replaced the paperback as the default time-killer in airport lounges, and the e-reader offers a pocketable library without the physical bulk.

Brenna Connor, director and book industry analyst for US books at Circana, points out that the format’s very benefit — portability — has been usurped. “These smaller, pocketable formats made them inexpensive and portable, making them ideal for people on the go and also ideal for soldiers during war.

“When you think about the needs of what brought paperbacks to the market, then fast forward to 2026, where we live in an age where they are no longer relevant today which is contributing to their demise.”

“Thinking about how portable mass-market paperbacks have become and fit in your pocket,” Connor adds, “well, we also have an endless bookshelf that can now fit our cell phone in our pocket, whether it’s to access e-books to read or even audiobooks to listen to. This digital shift is definitely impacting the overall decline in the mass-market paperback format.”

There is also a transformation of the book as an object. In the age of “BookTok” (the book community on TikTok), readers increasingly appreciate books as aesthetic pieces of art—hard covers with sprayed edges and foil stamping—rather than paperbacks with disposable yellow covers.

Bethan Patrick, book critic for the Los Angeles Times, points out that the economic logic of the mass market formula has simply evaporated. “Now, there is no need for mass market paperbacks, because they are not much cheaper to make than commercial paperbacks,” she says. “This is something that a lot of people miss.”

“I’ve seen comments on various social media sites and posts from librarians saying, ‘Look, you don’t understand. We know our patrons love them, but it’s actually not cheaper for bookstores to buy mass-market editions.” They’re trying to get their customers used to the paperback trade, and that’s not always easy. Large-format paperbacks have a nostalgia and comfort factor to them.

But having grown up in the mass-market paperback generation, a time when “you could find great literature next to a kettle,”“, Patrick recognizes the cultural loss.

“We all knew that the general public had a certain interest or some interest in the game for what was going on in books and reading, and now we’ve lost some of that to people watching videos or games. I don’t know how to get them back to the printed page. I wish I did. However, I know they won’t go back to the printed page in the mass market. It’s a shame because it was so easy. If you lost one, you wouldn’t mind so much.”“

The writing is on the wall. Airport retailer Hudson began phasing out mass-market books from its convenience stores last year, limiting them to only a few dedicated bookstore locations. Even major properties like the Bridgerton series are no longer being remade in mass-market form; Once current stock is exhausted, it will only be available in trade paperback or hardback form.

For Steve Zacharius, CEO of Kensington Publishing, the largest independent publisher of the genre in the United States, the decline is not just about business. His father founded the company in 1974, initially publishing only mass-market titles.

“When January came, my production manager, who’s been here 35 years, called me and said, ‘This is sad, this is the first month we haven’t released a book on a large scale at all,'” Zacharius says. “When I started the company, we had a huge market. We didn’t have a hardcover or trade paperback when my father started in 1974; it was an absolutely huge market and the print run of each book was enormous.”

“I was reviewing sales history to see how the numbers continued to be lower than they were in 1994 and then continued to go down a little, a little, a little every year. The market spoke, and consumers spoke about wanting a change in format.”