“I know that many TPO authors (myself included when I didn’t know any better) lament the lack of a paperback coming out the next year as one of the drawbacks/disappointments associated with no hardcover,” Joe McGinniss, Jr. emailed us yesterday afternoon. But when Grove/Atlantic‘s Black Cat imprint went back for a fifth printing on his debut novel, The Delivery Man, they decided to tweak the cover as well, resulting in what the author cheerfully calls “a paperback of the paperback.” (Compare the two versions above; the new edition’s on the right.)
“Along with better pricepoint, higher sales, fewer returns and the chance to grace the shelves of Urban Outfitters,” McGinniss enthused (and The Delivery Man isn’t the only book that’s been turning up there), “the shot at a paperback of your paperback original is one more argument for ditching cloth altogether.”