By publishing books in varying formats within a seies you are shamelessly seeking to have your cake and eat it – using the goodwill and branding of the series concept when it suits you but not supporting this goodwill with appropriate editions when you fear you may not do so well out of it. This is not the concept originally promoted and I like others bought into.

Books are bought or hired – I do not buy paperbacks I hire them from libraries as what is the point of buying a book to read once and give away or buying something to keep on a shelf which immediately looks shabby as paperbacks invariably do.

Very disappointed in being sold a line like this and will cease buying the series.

We do pay attention to what the readers say about the Myths series, and we also have to consider what is best in our publishing strategy for each title, as they are (and should be) strong enough to stand alone as novels as well as being part of a series. So we hope you, the readers, do understand that sometimes a new Myth is better served as a trade paperback in its original outing.

http://www.meetatthegate.com/index.php?option=com_article&article_id=712

“Perhaps Charlie would do away with all hardbacks?”

The reason hardbacks exist are to increase money earned for the publishers and the author. They also increase their durability, especially when a book is to be well used (such as a reference or academic book). Mainly, in commercial ‘chart’ publishing, a hardback is published first, and then we have to wait typically 9 – 12 months before a paperback is published, to make us more likely to spend money on a book that we cannot wait for.

Now, I think some of the larger trade paperbacks are important to have around, not least because the font is often larger so visually impaired people are able to benefit from them. I don’t think hardbacks should be done away with, and I don’t think I actually said that in my comment. I am merely pointing out that the massively hysterical response to the cessation of this particular series in hardbacks is ever so slightly over the top, when you consider that, whilst the aesthetic appeal of how a book looks might be important to you, it should never be more important that the actual words the book is composed of. By choosing not to buy further books in the series, you are saying that how a book looks is more important to you than how it reads.

“Why even bother with a cover?”

Obviously, you need a cover in order to contain the book and to be able to advertise what the actual book is. I’m not sure why you are saying this.

“Indeed, a book is about reading, but it is also about pleasure and touch, it is also a visual thing (does Charlie not think something as ’superficial’ as the font type or page layout actually affects the process of reading?).”

I’m not denying that the cover of a book has an effect. I’m commenting on the fact that there are people here who are ‘reconsidering’ or even refusing to purchase further books in the series based on the fact that hardbacks are not available. I think this is rather silly. It implies you are simply buying these books as objects to be regarded (or smelt), rather than the interactive reading process that they actually are.

“Even the smell of the page is important – a book enriches the senses as well as the intellect.”

The scent of a book adversely affects your decision on whether to read the book or not, to the point where you would cease purchasing a series of books based on the introduction of an undesirable new scent? I realise there are various components to a book: as you say, scent, cover design, thickness of cover etc etc – but these are all manufactured or marketing components of the book. The actual book, the thing that was written by the author and the thing that we want to read, is above all the essential and most important thing. I’m not saying we should do away with all those other components, but I do think it is important to remember exactly their ‘position’ and that the extreme valuing of them that we see in these comments are often bound up in a sort of wishy-washy, pseudo profound romantic attachment to books that degrades literature because it displaces our interest away from the text and onto these less important details.

“Charlie seems to have a one-dimensional approach to reading and, as such, is missing out on many of the riches reading offers.”

I thoroughly enjoy reading, that’s why I studied books and why I work with books. I also have a bookshelf in which I anally arrange them in a way that is visually appealing to me. I don’t deny a book can look beautiful quite apart from it’s content. But I would always make the content of the book my priority over anything else. The reason I recently enjoyed reading Anthony Burgess’ “A Dead Man in Deptford” is because the imitative Elizabeth prose style takes my breath away. And whilst the picture of Marlowe on the front looks a bit naff, shrouded as it is in odd foliage, and whilst the book does have a lovely old-bookish smell, and the black font on white on the spine gives it a cleanness which does look good when aligned with my other books – none of these things ever take priority over the substance of the thing I read. I remember and enjoy what the book said and how it said it, not the picture of Marlow on the front. I think you think I’m suggesting all books should be issued in entirely plain, blank white covers. This is not the case. I am aware books are visually pleasing but this is secondary to the content.

In a nutshell: I think basing your decision to read a book on how it smells (!), how it looks, how it feels, how it is presented etc., and valuing this over and above the content of the book is a bit silly.

“If he got more involved in the reading process perhaps he might then be able to construct a comment using less melodrama “we should all kill ourselves” and perhaps even more complex words than “p*ssing”.”

The existence of that melodramatic sentence I made does not imply that I am consequently incapable of constructing a comment that could use less melodrama, so that’s an odd point to make. I’m sorry that you find ‘p*ssing’ a not very complex word, and I’d be interested to hear what words you deem to be complex and which are simple, and by what methods you go about deciding this. That was part of my rhetoric, to try and highlight the degree of almost child-like veneration of cover over content that we see in these comments.

- By the way, the glaringly obvious reason that canongate have published these latest titles in paperback are to do with money. Not enough people buy the hardback to make it a financially viable option for them. The alternative is not to publish them at all. I know which one I’d rather.