Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, novelist and Bookninja contributor, surveys agents, publicists, review editors, publishers, writers, booksellers, and customers “in a mad attempt to glean what is really behind … The Myth of Hardcover.”
There is a sense from the surveys answered that the consumer, given the choice, would prefer paperback. I do not think that the average book buyer is impulsive but rather that given the fact that frontlist large press books are well-hyped and, therefore, easily recollected at point of purchase, the desire for ownership, and entry into the particular mystery of that particular book, over-rides patience. At this point, the fact that hardcover fiction exists begins to feel coercive.