Say Goodbye to Cheap Mass-Market Paperback Romance Books

Say Goodbye to Cheap Mass-Market Paperback Romance Books

If you were hoping to buy or get your paperback book in the airport bookstore, Target, or Walmart, it may be too late. A recent New York Times article features the history of mass-market paperback books and where they think paperbacks may be or not be in the future. Here are the article highlights…

For years, sales of paperbacks have been dropping and nearing extinction, according to this New York Times article:

“…peeled away by e-books, digital audiobooks and even more expensive formats like hardcovers and trade paperbacks, the mass market’s larger and pricier cousin. Last year, ReaderLink — the country’s largest distributor of books to airport bookshops, pharmacies and big-box stores like Target and Walmart — announced that it would stop carrying mass markets altogether.“

Stephen King is quoted in the article saying that paperbacks allowed him to quit his teaching job and write full time.

“When the New American Library bought the paperback rights to his 1974 debut novel, “Carrie,” it paid $400,000. _ ‘We lived off that money,’ King said. ‘I could write books. I was free.’“

And when digital books were introduced in the 1990s, everyone thought that print books would altogether be replaced, but as of today, that has yet to happen. As the article reports:

“Physical books still account for about 75 percent of book sales, according to the Association of American Publishers. But mass market paperbacks have been a casualty.“

In the United States, the article explains that Circana BookScan tracks most print book sales, and in 2006 — a year before the Kindle entered the market — 103 million mass market paperbacks were sold. When you look at what readers bought last year, it was fewer than 18 million, according to the article.

The article also notes that publishers have made fewer mass market titles available over the past decades, leading to a drop from 54,000 titles to 44,000. However, the article makes clear that publishers are not leading this change — readers are.

And according to the article, retail store Hudson, which operates in transportation hubs across North America, runs over 1,000 stores, and as of 2025, most of its stores have stopped carrying mass market paperbacks altogether.

“Mass markets were not just cannibalized digitally. Readers now seem more willing to buy books in larger, pricier formats like trade paperbacks and hardcovers. And romance readers happily shell out three or four times the price of a mass market on deluxe hardcovers with colorfully stained edges on the paper or other embellishments.“

And when it comes to deluxe hardcovers, even Liz Pellitier of Entangled Publishing has been quoted saying, “My only regret is that I printed too few.”

Plus, when you buy a digital Kindle book through Amazon, you are not actually purchasing a copy in the traditional sense. You are buying a license to access and read that content. Which further makes owning a deluxe hardcover book something special, something that feels permanent in a way digital files simply do not.

All In All…

The article also notes that popular books like Bridgerton will not be replenished as mass market paperbacks after stores run out of stock, though they will continue to be available in trade paperback and hardcover editions.

Long story short, say goodbye to cheap paperback romance books and all other cheap mass-market books, too.

Source:
Elizabeth A. Harris, “So Long to Cheap Books You Could Fit in Your Pocket,” The New York Times, February 6, 2026, https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/books/mass-market-paperback-books.html