Leif has recently been chronicling the advent of the "paper-bounds" - the cheap paperbacks that were the only books of that 1950's publishing era that were experiencing market growth. His source of information is a Sept. 1953 article from Fortune magazine and it certainly is an eye-opener in terms of how the market conditions then can be applied to today's publishing and media.
Here's a small sample of the pulpy goodness found in these blog posts:
Paper-bound publishers say their market is made up mostly of people who used to read only magazines, who are intimidated by the forbidding air of a bookstore, and who can afford perhaps a small fraction of the price of most new hard-cover books.
They buy and read on the move, picking books off a rack or newsstand to read while commuting or traveling or during a frenzied day of changing diapers and making meals. They are impulse buyers who pick books at point of sale, and after reading them, throw them away or pass them on to someone else. Few paper-bound buyers, say the publishers, want to keep the books as personal possessions or "furniture."
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