ABSTRACT
The guess is that the 1974-1975 growth suspension will prove temporary, but that the growth rate in the last half of the decade will be considerably slower than it was in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The danger is that any growth rate may be used as a cosmetic to cover some very serious problems within the paperback industry. There is no longer a mass market for books; there are many. Just as an author writes a book with specific audiences in mind, the marketing of the book must not lose sight of those specifics. The best paperback publishers have long known this. They have tailor-made their sales, promotion, publicity and advertising efforts and have increasingly adopted a "trade book" publishing approach. Full-line booksellers and college store managers have a stake in the outcome of the federal court proceedings. Unlike drug stores, newsstands chain food and variety stores the bookseller for years has been odd-man-out in mass paperback distribution.
