I’m switching from audiobooks to hard copies and on B&N, I see two that are paperback. One is $19 and the other is $9.99, what’s the difference???
I tried asking in the B&N subreddit, but it’s only for employees. Wondering if anyone here knows!
by Big-Hotel464
4 Comments
The cheaper one is probably a “mass market paperback” vs the larger, more expensive “trade paperback”.
DM
Can one of the copies be the first version of the book, typically printed as a paperback with flaps and maybe some effects (such as spot gloss), and the other copy is maybe the second version of the same title, but printed in cheaper materials as a paperback without flaps and effects?
It sounds to me like the price difference is because one version is a trade paperback, meaning larger (the usual book size) and of better quality, while the other is a mass market paperback, which is smaller (what in some countries is known as a pocket edition) and generally more affordable.
For example, last summer I bought a few classics in a bookshop in Manchester. They’re Penguin Classics, and the ones I got cost around £7.99 (about $9 in the US), whereas I remember browsing some of the same titles in trade paperback editions and they were around £15. There was definitely a noticeable difference in size and in the quality of the paper.
Hope that helps 🙂