Bill asked about the history of GM. OK, but be careful what
you ask for. You may get it. This article is from Paperback
Quarterly, Volume 1, Number 1, way back in 1978. It had
footnotes, believe it or not, but they didn't scan well, so I
omitted them. I blame any and all other errors on the
scanner, as well.
Bill Crider
The paperback original as we know it was born in 1950. Even
at that time, of course, there was nothing new in the idea of
original fiction in paper covers, as those familiar with
Beadle's nickel, dime, and fifteen cent novels know. Beadle's
books first appeared nearly one hundred years before 1950.
And even in the 1940s novels appeared in paper covers without
first having gone through higher-priced, cloth-bound
editions. Many of these, however, were published by small
houses, were digest size (HandiBooks, for example), and did
not really resemble the reprints being issued by Pocket
Books, Bantam, Avon, and others. The new history of paperback
original publishing began quietly in late 1949 with a brief
article in the December 3 issue of Publisher's Weekly.stating
that "Beginning in February [1950], original fiction
including westerns and mysteries will be published at 25
cents in a pocket-size format by Fawcett Publications." The
series, to be called Gold Medal Books, had actually already
begun with two
"experimental titles," both anthologies of material culled
from two Fawcett magazines. The titles were The BEST of TRUE
MAGAZINE and The Best of TODAY'S WOMAN. This announcement
does not seem to have caused any undue excitement, and there
was no further news of Fawcett?s venture in Publisher's
Weekly until May 13, 1950, when another brief article
appeared. This article said that Fawcett books were "similar
in appearance and cover allure to many of the paperback
reprints, but the story material [was] original and not
reprinted from regular editions." (The key word here is
"regular." "Regular" editions were cloth-bound. Pocket-size
books were re-prints of "regular" editions. Therefore paper
originals could never be "regular.") The authors of these
fiction originals were to be paid a $2000 advance against a
guaranteed first printing of 200,000 copies. The May 1950
Fawcett releases, actually the first four Gold Medal novels,
were Stretch Dawson by W. R. Bumett (author of Little
Caesar), Nude in Mink by Sax Rohmer (creator of Fu Manchu),
I'll Find You by Richard Himmel, and The Persian Cat by John
Flagg. Burnett' s hook was a western; the latter three books
were mystery/adventure novels. Such a publishing method seems
natural, almost inevitable, to us now, when original
paperback novels make up some of the greatest successes of
the publishing year (such as Pyramid's best-selling and
widely imitated Bicentennial series by John Jakes, or Avon's
Wicked Loving Lies, a romance which sold close to 300,000
copies in its first month of publication). In 1950, however,
paper-covered books existed primarily to reprint the
higher-priced hardcover editions, and it was not long before
what Publisher's Weekly called a "spirited debate" broke out
between Fawcett and the other publishing houses, most notably
Pocket Books, a pioneer reprint firm. Freeman Lewis,
executive vice-president of Pocket Books, said that
?_Successful_ authors are not interested in original
publishing at 25 cents.'" Mr. Lewis went on to say that while
many works were no doubt available for original publishing,
these were "mostly rejects, or sub-standard books by usually
competent writers." There was also a financial side to the
debate. From the 25-cent originals, the author got the entire
royalty. If his book was first -published in a "regular"
edition, the author had to split the reprint royalty 50-50
with the hardcover publisher. Of course, as these publishers
were quick to point out, the paperback writer was left
without the normal royalties paid on the hardcover edition
and whatever book club rights he might have received. There
was also a strong implication by the hardback publishers that
paperback writers would be unlikely ever to make a movie
sale. Fawcett responded that its original novels were equal
in quality to other 25-cent books (i.e., reprints) and
mentioned that among its authors were many who had first
published with some success in hard covers, including Rohmer,
Burnett, MacKinlay Kantor, and Octavus Boy Cohen. As for
finances, Fawcett felt that the author's reward came much
more promptly from original paperback publishing than from
the hardcover firms. In addition, at least one original had.
already "been sold to the movies," thus increasing the
author's benefits. (That exemplary title was The Violent
Ones-by Howard Hunt, a best-selling writer of the late 1940s
and 1950s, who wrote paperbacks under his own name and
several pseudonyms--Gordon Davis, Robert Dietrich, David St.
John-?and later achieved fame in other areas.) All in all,
Fawcett concluded that there were plenty of action,
adventure, and western manuscripts to go around and that its
original-publishing operation was "no threat" to the reprint
or hardcover firms. This was clearly not the view of LeBaron
R. Barker of Doubleday, who felt that original paperback
could
"'undermine the whole structure of publishing'" The
"spirited debate" grew even more acrimonious. Donald
MacCampbell, a literary agent, wrote in a letter to
Publisher's Weekly that one publisher "threatened to boycott
my agency if it continued to negotiate contracts with
original 25-cent firms.? What was all the shouting about? For
one thing, Gold Medal titles were selling quite a few copies.
As Ralph Daigh, Editorial Director of Gold Medal, put it, "In
the past six months we have produced 9,020,645 books and
people seem to like them very well.? Gold Medal was a
success, and its output increased from thirty-five titles in
1950 to sixty-six in 1951. It was obvious that the other
publishers saw that Gold Medal was both cutting into their
market and creating its own market. They seemed both envious
and resentful, and most soon realized that they would have to
meet the competition. Publisher's Weekly reported in May 1952
that Avon had included three originals in its April 1952
releases and was "looking for more manuscripts." Dell was
"'thinking about' some systematic program of original
publishing." Lion Books had "a definite original publishing
program in the works." Graphic had begun "publishing
originals on a systematic basis almost a year ago." Bantam,
Pocket, and NAL stood firm, saying that they would ?not be
competing in this field. (It is interesting that Arnold Hano
of Lion Books saw fit to respond to this article with a
letter stating that "The original publishing program of Lion
Books is a supplement, and merely a supplement, to our
reprint program.") One clever attempt to circumvent the
original/reprint controversy was made in 1952 by lan
Ballantine, founder of Ballantine Books. His idea was "to
offer trade publishers a plan for simultaneous publishing of
original titles in two editions, a hard-cover ?regular?
edition for bookstore sale, and a paper-cover, ?newsstand?
size, low-priced edition for mass market sale.? One of
Ballantine's first, and very successful, titles was Cameron
Hawley's Executive Suite. Another unique development in 1952
was the A. A. Wyn company's series, Ace Double Hovel Books.
Each Ace Double Novel included two books, one reprint and one
original work, and had two "front" covers and two title
pages, a bibliographer's nightmare come true. These books
sold for 35 cents. The first Ace Double featured The Grinning
Gizmo by Samuel W. Taylor (reprint) and Top Hot For Hell by
Keith Vining (original). In 1953, Dell finally announced its
plans for Dell First Editions. Dell had for some time been
planning the expansion of its paperback program, and had
previously announced that "originals [would] play a large
part in the expansion.? Early titles in the series included
Walt Grove'?s Down, Frederic Brown's Madball, and Charles
Einstein's The Bloody Spur, later filmed and reprinted as
While The City Sleeps. Dell's program, like Fawcett's, was
very successful; the practice of publishing paperback
originals was well established. Some notably successful
paperback writers include John D. MacDonald, John Jakes, Kurt
Vonnegut, Jr., and Kathleen E. Woodiwiss. MacDonald began
writing for Gold Medal in the arly 1950s and also did
originals for Dell First Editions arid Popular Library. He
has seen his popular Travis McGee series of paperback
originals reprinted in hardcover and has lately achieved
bestseller status in "regular" editions, most recently with
Condominium. Kurt Vonnegut's second novel, The Sirens of
Titan, was a Dell First Edition, and he also published Mother
Night with Gold Medal. A book club has recently reprinted all
five volumes of John Jakes' Bicentennial series in hardcover
editions, available to members of the club either in separate
volumes or as a set. Kathleen E. Woodiwiss has been so
successful that Avon issued. her latest book, Shanna, in a
trade edition for
$3.95. No doubt a standard size paperback, somewhat cheaper,
will be issued later. This latter development seems to have
brought originals almost full circle: the pocket-size edition
of Shanna will be a reprint of a higher-priced
original.
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