{"id":4772,"date":"2012-08-21T20:29:58","date_gmt":"2012-08-22T02:29:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=4772"},"modified":"2012-08-21T20:29:58","modified_gmt":"2012-08-22T02:29:58","slug":"how-paperbacks-transformed-the-way-americans-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=4772","title":{"rendered":"How Paperbacks Transformed the Way Americans Read"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mentalfloss.com\/blogs\/archives\/137715\">Andrew Shaffer<\/a>: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i>Half a century before e-books turned publishing upside down, a different format threatened to destroy the industry.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s a little perspective: In 1939, gas cost 10 cents a gallon at the pump. A movie ticket set you back 20 cents. John Steinbeck\u2019s The Grapes of Wrath, the year\u2019s bestselling hardcover book, was $2.75. For a nation suffering 20 percent unemployment, books were an impossible expense.<\/p>\n<p>But in just one day, Robert de Graff changed that. On June 19, 1939, the tall, dynamic entrepreneur took out a bold, full-page ad in The New York Times: OUT TODAY\u2014THE NEW POCKET BOOKS THAT MAY TRANSFORM NEW YORK\u2019S READING HABITS.<\/p>\n<p>The ad was timed to coincide with the debut of his newest endeavor, an imprint called Pocket Books. Starting with a test run of 10 titles, which included classics as well as modern hits, de Graff planned to unleash tote-able paperbacks on the American market. But it wasn\u2019t just the softcover format that was revolutionary: De Graff was pricing his Pocket Books at a mere 25 cents.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Andrew Shaffer: Half a century before e-books turned publishing upside down, a different format threatened to destroy the industry. Here\u2019s a little perspective: In 1939, gas cost 10 cents a gallon at the pump. A movie ticket set you back 20 cents. John Steinbeck\u2019s The Grapes of Wrath, the year\u2019s bestselling hardcover book, was $2.75. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4772"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4772\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}