Bookend
Bookbuyer
The beleaguered hardback, beset by rising prices and increasingly undermined by simultaneous paperback publication, takes another blow on May 28 this year when Quartet Books bring out two of the books on their first list in 'midway editions.' Midway is midway baween hardback and paperback: a stiff, calico-finished board with a wrap-around jacket.
Apart from the look and feel of these books, which Quartet is very satisfied with, there are considerable publishing advantages. A hardback costing E3-£4 can be reproduced in ' midway ' at a cost to the bookbuyer of £1-£1.50. The saving is mostly in binding costs. If the binding cost of a hardback or ' casebound ' edition to Quartet is sixteen n.p., a ' midway ' edition, bound in something called Invercote D, will cost them three n.p. There is also a saving on the longer print run estimated on the basis of lower cost. Quartet expect to bring a hardback edition of 1,500, on average, against a ' midway ' edition of, say, 5,000-7,000. The paperback could then come nine to twelve months later — certainly sooner than the traditional gap of eighteen months to two years.
Other publishers are now going ahead with these semi-stiff bindings. Wildwood House, another new publishing company, which has been churning out innumerable Paul Goodman titles this spring, has already announced its intention of doing so: although they look upon theirs as the expensive end of the paperback market. It may not be long before libraries start objecting. At the moment, Quartet's hardbacks, in common with many others, are intended specifically for libraries, with a few hundred bound up for friends and as 'gift books' on the side. Quartet has tied a 'condition of sale' to its ' midway ' editions which specifies that libraries cannot bind them up in stiffer covers for the use of their readers. But as hardbacks continue to dwindle in print run and inflate in cost, libraries may be looking with increasing jealousy at that calico finish.
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