Paperback books that don’t sell are discarded so as not to compete with long tail purchases but hard cover books are expensive enough in terms of production and distribution that the end up getting discounted instead.
That's definitely not true for all paperback books. I often buy remaindered paperbacks at Dog Eared and Alley Cat bookshops in San Francisco. You can tell they're remaindered because they're marked with felt tip.
When I lived in the UK, Fopp was a great source for them (along with discount films and music.)
My knowledge of the subject goes back to a high school job in a bookstore. Things may well have changed since then. Back then we ripped the covers off mass market paperback and sent them back to the publisher for a credit. The books were supposed to be discarded but you did from time to time come across a paperback book with no cover at a thrift store or similar, so clearly that didn’t always happen.
Right. Many years ago, I worked for a department store or two that carried books. Some of those missing the front cover ended up where employees could take them. I suppose that this was not supposed to happen, but it did.
I’ve had plenty of paperback books lose their covers fairly quickly, seeing used books without covers doesn’t mean they had their covers intentionally ripped off.
Yes - they don't want to flood the used book market with paperbacks, which would compete with future sales of the same title.
If you're a bookstore and a hardcover doesn't sell, you have to return the whole book to the publisher. If a paperback doesn't sell, you just have to rip off the front cover and return that to the publisher.
I somewhat agree with you but I really do like some kind of curation, even if that curation is done by the market. There's nothing inherently good with a surplus of bad goods. I'd prefer a copy of "The Library of Babel" vs. all of the books inside of it.
