The market for reading material

Publishers are turning away from mass market paperbacks. 

There's a part of me that wants to shake my fist at an indifferent God over this. I want to blame the cupidity of big corporations. But, on the other hand, if there really were a market to fill here, someone would. 

Here's my read of the story, between the lines: Once upon a time, books were sold all over the place. I remember paperbacks in the gas station near my house in Kansas. No longer. 

Now you can only get books in the bookstore. 

A similar thing happened with comic books a long time ago. It used to be that you could buy comic books in grocery stores. That's how I got started reading comics. But spinner racks have been gone a long time. And for a long time I was in denial about it.

I blamed the comic book companies for chasing the better margins in comic book shops, but the truth is that the margins off comics weren't good enough for the grocery stores and the gas stations any longer. They had better uses for that shelf space.

I don't love all the ways the world is changing, and one of the ways seems pretty clear: People just don't like reading that much any longer.

It's not an activity for the masses. Sure, sure, there's enough people reading that a handful of writers can make a career out of it still. But reading is not as culturally vital as it once was, and it's getting worse all the time.

I don't care about formats. If a huge literary boom happened on Kindles, I would be ecstatic. And there is a lot of reading happening on Kindles. And on the web. But it's still nothing compared to the 60s and 70s. If you open that link above, there's a photo from 1966 of shoppers browsing paperbacks. It's incredible. 

Send me back. 

—Brady Dale
October 14, 2026