Book Sizes Part 2

Book Sizes in paperback are a lot trickier than even hardback. It used to be that I would only include three sizes: mass market, paperback #1, and paperback #2, but it seems as though things have expanded somewhat and I will be including two others (Tall Standard Paperback will barely be mentioned and only included in the second picture.)

Here's a picture of each typical paperback. I'm going to explain right to left, since I want to go from small to big. Had I thought of that at the time of the picture taking, I would have arranged them in that order. I also could have just flipped the image, but I'm going to assume you're not a gullible audience and would easily notice the flipped titles. (Once again I apologize for certain book examples.)

"Which examples in particular?" you ask. "How can I hear you through my computer screen?" I reply.

Undead and Unwelcome is your standard mass market paperback. These used to generally be what everything looked like when it was in paperback, unless the book was really huge. I just call these mass market paperbacks (or Mass PB in my records). Mass market paperbacks measure 6 3/4 tall by 4 1/2 deep.

Princeps' Fury is what I call a Tall Mass Market Paperback. I've been collecting the Codex Alera series in the standard mass market and didn't realize I'd gotten book 5 in Tall until after I got home (it has bugged me ever since.) I didn't even realize a Tall format of mass market existed until Princep's Fury, and have seen several since then. Tall Mass PB measure 7 1/2 tall by 4 1/2 deep (the same depth as a normal mass market)

It used to be that mass market paperbacks were all that really existed in paperbacks, hardbacks being released as mass market paperbacks a year later, with only the most massive page-spanning epics being a larger size (though I have seen the large story Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind in mass market paperback, and it's not pretty.) In the last 10 or 15 years there has been an explosion of other sizes. I think the Young Adult market helped a lot with that, since teens are generally going to buy cheaper books (and have cheaper books bought for them) so larger, more attention-grabbing paperbacks were made. These days there seems to be a book released in hardback, then in paperback a year later, and finally mass market paperback.

Normally I wouldn't have included the size format of The Lightning Thief, but I have been seeing it more often. I have yet to have a name for it, but I am leaning towards a Short Paperback. Short Paperback measures 7 1/2 tall by 5 1/4 deep (the same height as a Tall mass market.)

The Forest of Hands and Teeth is what I like to call Paperback Size #1. It measures 8 tall by 5 1/4 deep (and what bugs me about it is that the next two books in the trilogy then switched to PB #2)

Hex Hall, meanwhile, is Paperback Size #2. It measures 8 1/4 tall by 5 1/2 deep.

So here they are all together. Left to right each one stepping down in height: Tall Paperback, Paperback #2, Paperback #1, Short Paperback, Tall Mass Market, and Standard Mass Market.