As e-books become a larger and larger part of the book market, it seems that the biggest target will be mass market paperbacks.

For what this article calls a “book reader” (as opposed to a “book owner”), e-books are an obvious replacement for mass market paperbacks.

Purchasing hard cover books and even trade paperbacks is more of an event buy. One is putting down a little bit more money for the unique experience of a desired physical book. But mass market paperbacks are the books printed to be read on subways and airplanes or impulse buys because they monetary outlay isn’t great. As a result, they are the closest competitors to e-books.

I’d hate to see them go. If you, like me, are a genre fan, then you have spent a lot of time with the mass market paperback. In my case, it’s science fiction and fantasy, where only the biggest names see the light of day as a hardback tome and where thousands of new books are produced as those small paperbacks that populate my shelves.

There’s something wonderfully egalitarian in the nature of the sci fi paperback, as well as an attachment to its history in the pulps. It’s inexpensive nature made it so easy as a young man browsing the shelves at Waldenbooks or B. Dalton’s in some mall or other to take a chance on an unknown writer based on a combination of cover art and the description on the back.