Paperback

As previously noted, when a phrase comes up in the background frequently, it's often because it's in the news. So it is with "paperback," today.

There's a mashup of Paperback Writer with My Sharona on Youtube:




The song came up recently because of the dispute between Amazon and the publishing house Hatchette. Amazon is trying to charge lower prices for ebooks, Hatchette and others are resisting something they expect to cut into profits. At least some authors are concerned about their cut, as well.

Amazon is comparing the situation with what happened when paperbacks came out. Penguin Books started publishing paperbacks in 1935, for a much lower price than the hardcovers before them. Amazon trots out George Orwell as someone who opposed what was effectively a lower price for his products. The implication was that Hatchette was objecting to ebook publishing for similar reasons.

A continued reading of the Penguin Books wikipedia article indicates that the company was able to use its initial success to be a major publisher during World War II. It then took advantage of its privileged position in paper rationing to continue expansion after the war. Evidently their paper availability made it possible for them to acquire publishing rights more easily in the post-war era. Which may be where Amazon is looking. And it's worth noting that 1935 is about the same point in the last Crisis that we are in now.

Paperback Writer was released as a single in 1966. Being roughly 30 years after the launch of Penguin Books, whatever may have been the popular perception of paperback books, it probably wasn't quite the same as Orwell's, any more. The story goes that Paul McCartney's aunt wanted to hear a song that wasn't about love. Seeing Ringo with a book soon after, he wrote a song about writing a book.  So perhaps no deeper meaning about paperbacks, there.

Note that this story is attributed to A Hard Day's Write: The Stories Behind Every Beatles Song by Steve Turner - published by Harper Paperbacks.