Following up on September’s conversation about publishing hardcover and trade paperbacks simultaneously in a bid to “save” literary fiction, the British wing of Picador announced yesterday that it will be dual-formatting most of its fiction starting next spring. The Bookseller‘s Katherine Rushton wuotes publisher Andrew Kidd:
“When are we going to accept that we live in an A and B (now mostly B) format country; that only a tiny handful of authors command enough reader loyalty to achieve viable hardback sales; that by concentrating promotional energy on a moribund format we are doing no favours to the format people actually want to buy?”
Is hardback literary fiction really a moribund format with no hope of resuscitation? Does Kidd’s bleak outlook on the UK market hold much relevance for us here in the US? What do you think?