How are book formats decided?

[thesoothsayer]

I've read that publishers prefer first prints to be in hardcover or trade paperback format because fewer copies need to be sold to make a profit. My question is how are formats for the next print decided? Do writers have any say or is it solely decided by the publishers?

For example, I did a search on Guy Gavriel Kay's books and they all seem to be in trade paperback format, even though they've been in print for years. How come they've never migrated to mass market paperback format? Is it a strategy decided by publishers to milk as much profit as they can?

Is this a little short-sighted because the higher prices may exclude potential readers in lower income countries, who may contribute to higher sales of mass market paperbacks? Or are the profit margins from hardcovers/trade paperbacks so much more that it's actually better to sell less books in those formats?

I guess that publishers have a rough idea of how much each author can sell based on their popularity and decide what format to put their books in but I'm hoping that someone with experience can tell me for sure.

 

[marklord]

I used to work for a trade books publisher several years ago so have some expertise in this area, although things might have changed since.

The publisher usually has full commercial decision making power over the format. They will have an idea of what will sell and in what formats. However, what used to happen was that some publishers would specialise in hardback. the paperback rights might then be sold by the author/agent to another publisher if the hardback did reasonably well. The company I worked for just did hardback. Larger more commercial publishers then might buy paperback rights for some of our titles, and occasionally we might publish our own.

So this means that the decision probably depends on the contract signed between author and publisher, but this in turn will depend on how the publisher thinks a book will sell. The publisher is taking the risk so they will usually get the final say.

 

[thesoothsayer]

Thanks for the info.

 

[GeoffNelder]

It will also depend how good the publisher is at selling other format rights at Book Fairs such as in Frankfurt and London. In very small press, the publisher will listen to the writer if they have particular requests for a different format and can guarantee doing promo with signings and readings. Also it depends on marketing targets. An airport bookshop outlet sells more smaller size paperbacks for obvious reasons.

Geoff