“Ah, yes, the occasional “Why did you put gender fluidity in your book your agenda is ruining the story” comment. Perhaps what is ruining the story for that reader is their insistence on believing that a non-cishet character’s right to exist in a story is an “agenda”? And of course, if the reader is wondering why I put gender fluidity in a Norse mythology story that reader doesn’t know much about Norse mythology.”

And, of course, he’s absolutely right. There isn’t any kind of agenda and Norse mythology is no stranger to gender fluidity. Loki approves of Riordan’s stance. But it goes further than that, because this always brings out the corollary arguments from supposedly well-meaning people that go something like, “Well, yes, if the gender fluidity serves the story, it’s okay.”

Which is really saying, it’s ONLY okay if it directly serves the story. Which is bollocks.

Since when does a character’s cis gender identity directly serve the story?

This thinking gets projected out to trans people as well and, beyond gender, to queer people too. And to people of colour or people with disabilities. Which perpetuates the assumption that cis-het, straight, white and able-bodied is the norm and everything else is somehow odd and needs to serve the story in order to have a right to be in the story. Absolute bullshit.

Since when does a straight, white, cis-het character have to somehow justify their straightness, whiteness or cisness for a right to exist in a story?

A character can be portrayed as trans, for example, and their transness can have absolutely nothing to do with the story at all. They’re in the story for other reasons and they just happen to be trans. Just like all the other characters, presumably, just happen to not be trans. The same applies to characters of colour, to queer characters, to disabled characters. We don’t just include them in our stories in order to mine who they are for story. We include them because they exist. Because the world is full of wonderful diversity and that should be celebrated.

If anything, it’s more important to include traditionally marginalised characters in roles where their gender, sexuality, race and so on is irrelevant. Because that’s what the world around us is actually like. And those folks deserve to see themselves in stories just like cis-het straight white people see themselves in stories all the time. Not because of their marginalisation, but because they exist.

Certainly a person’s gender or sexuality or whatever might inform things about their character and personality, it might affect how they interact with the world of the story, but there is absolutely no requirement that their existence somehow serves the plot beyond their role in the story itself. We need to write stories with the rich diversity we see around us because that’s what’s real. It’s a simple as that.

People absolutely can and should write stories featuring marginalised people where whatever the cause of their marginalisation might be is central to the story. Those stories are vitally important and ideally written by people with lived experience. But they should absolutely not be the only stories featuring traditionally marginalised folks. It’s on all of us as writers to include rich diversity in our stories and help to remove rather than perpetuate marginalisation.

We can all be better.

The post A right to exist in stories appeared first on Alan Baxter.

Hello, fiends. Been a while, my apologies. But as my dear old mum used to say, if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. Which is bollocks, of course. Sometimes saying something unkind is really important. But I’m rambling already. It’s not that I didn’t have nice things to say, I just didn’t really have anything at all to share. I don’t want to ramble at you with no point, so I haven’t sent anything recently. However, there are a few things to talk about now.

First off, I’m sending this at the start of June, so I want to wish everyone a happy Pride. This isn’t something we should only celebrate for one month a year, but we won’t let the month pass without mention. Everyone is valid, everyone is valued, no one should be discriminated against for their gender, sexual orientation or anything else. Trans rights are human rights. Especially now we need to stand up for marginalised communities more than ever, and I will always do that. I saw this online recently, made by science communicator Rachel Lense, using only NASA images, which I thought was pretty cool.

(There’s a hi-res version here if you’re keen – ​https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Tqlg9nt4KiKyM8hiYLrT8vPGr3uCq8Q4​ )

But in terms of having anything personal to share, to say I’m in something of a slump in terms of writing and publishing would be an understatement.

Sailors used to always fear the doldrums. If you’re not a complete pirate nerd like me, you might think that just means being blue in mood, generally depressed or whatever. But it’s actually a nautical term. In modern usage, it describes a spell of listlessness or despondency, which we’re all prone to every once in a while. I mean, this fucking world right now? It’s hard not to spend long periods in despondency. But specifically and originally, the doldrums refers to a part of the ocean near the equator where strong winds are largely absent. When you relied on wind for propulsion, that was a terrifying prospect. If your ship was becalmed for too long, fresh water and food rapidly ran out. It wouldn’t be long before pretty desperate and horrendous decisions needed to be made.

Now, before anyone panics, I’m drawing a long bow with this analogy. I’m not about to start metaphorically throwing people overboard or anything.

These days, the doldrums can also, according to Merriam-Webster, refer to a period of inactivity or stagnation, like the ocean with no wind. That’s the part that certainly applies to my personal publishing life and the publishing industry in general right now. Lots of stuff is happening for some people, which is always great, but lots of stuff… isn’t, as well. I trust that things will pick up again. They always do, one way or another. My agent currently has two adult novels, a novella, a short story collection and a middle grade novella in various stages of submission. I haven’t been lazy. But, if I’m honest, I haven’t been writing much new stuff this year. It seems the winds of publishing are low, the industry in the doldrums. Everyone is talking about longer than usual wait times for a variety of reasons—chief among them, it seems, is lack of staff because of cuts and the fetid pollution of generative-AI causing all kinds of crap. Regardless, shit is slow, fam.

So I really hope I do have some news on the new book front sooner rather than later. We’re definitely putting the work in to make that happen. Meanwhile, I’ve been on a bit of a short story trip lately. A couple of places asked me for stories, which is always a thrill, and there’s a couple more out on submission right now. I have a couple of other new novel projects in various early stages and I’m not sure which way I’ll be jumping with those just yet. I’m letting things percolate while I work on short stories.

All of which is to say, nothing new yet, my friends, but I’m super grateful to anyone who sticks with me. The doldrums preventing propulsion applies to publishing as well and I know I’m not the only writer who has low key panic when it seems like it might be a while between books. Momentum is so important in this industry.

But ​The Rise​ was out in February and there’ll be some new short fiction before long, so all is not lost. Please cross your fingers, pray to your gods, make whatever sacrifices you see fit that some of those bigger projects out in the world land somewhere cool before long. All good and positive thoughts on that front gratefully received.

In other news, for the writers among you, I’ll be running my popular workshop Write the Fight Right online with the Queensland Writers Centre on June 25th from 5.30 to 8.30 pm AEST. Being online, it’s open to anyone and I believe there are a few spots left if you’re quick. All the details and booking here: ​https://queenslandwriters.org.au/events/write-the-fight-right-with-alan-baxter​

What I’ve Been Enjoying

I’ve been a huge comic book nerd forever. I mentioned Preacher last time, which I originally enjoyed as a comic and then started watching the TV adaptation. They took some liberties with the original story to say the least, but it was a hugely satisfying series for all that. I really enjoyed it and the end was well done. Which leads me The Boys. Man, I loved that original comic and wondered if they’d ever manage to make it a decent TV series. Again, huge liberties taken with a lot of the storylines, but they did a fantastic job in my opinion. There were certainly messed up parts that didn’t quite work out (I’m really disappointed they didn’t make more of Gen V, for example) but overall they nailed it. An absolutely bonkers show with a hugely satisfying conclusion. The fact that it’s also really upsetting the absolute worst people in the world only adds to the enjoyment. Homelander was always the bad guy, was always a horrible, weak, hate-filled manchild, and the fact that some people still didn’t get that even after the finale is wild. It’s why you end up with Trump in charge of America, of course. Anyway, The Boys was amazing and Anthony Starr’s performance as Homelander was award-worthy. Just brilliant.

I’m also currently really enjoying the final season of From. It’s been a powerfully enjoyable show and I really hope they nail the landing with it. My other current watch is a Netflix original series from Norway called Ragnarok. It’s a really good take on Norse mythology with some great performances. There are three 6-episode seasons and I’m just starting season 3. It’s really tightly edited, things move at a frantic pace, but it’s really well done. Also great to see something Norwegian—anything not American is refreshing.

As for reading, huge congratulations to Daniel Kraus for winning the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with his latest, Angel Down. A horror novel got the Pulitzer! Fantastic. It really is a remarkable book too. Kraus’s prose is outstanding. I’m not entirely sure it needed the device of one endless sentence, I think it could have worked just as well without that, but it’s a relentless, propulsive read. I also really enjoyed recently Shadow Season by Tom Piccirilli. Tom was recognised as a horror writer, and rightly so, but he was a brilliant crime writer too. This book was excellent. I’ve also recently enjoyed House of Idyll by Deliah S Dawson and Something in the Walls by Daisy Pearce. I’m currently reading The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle ahead of the TV adaptation of that, which I’ll definitely be watching.

Right, that’s all from me for now. May you not get caught in the doldrums for too long, my friends. Be kind, to yourself and others.

Al

The post Newsletter 3rd June 2026 appeared first on Alan Baxter.

The post “All the Eyes That See” now in audio at Pseudopod appeared first on Alan Baxter.

There’s another silly book rumble going on over on Facebook. These things are pretty good for getting books noticed and I’d love to go through to the next round. So if you’re in the Haunted Minds Book Club group ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/hauntedmindsbookclub ) please do consider giving Blood Covenant a vote on Monday, as per the graphic below. The group posted this explainer:

“Feast your eyes, Rumblers! This is the gauntlet these authors have to make it through to even TASTE the final 24! Oh YEAHHHH! The dirt starts flying MONDAY, MAY 4th! One group a day, ten votes a day! The top 15 from each group advances to the second eliminator round on May 9th! I hope your affairs are in order, Authors! OH YEAHHH!”

No idea if I’ll get anywhere close to the final 24, but would love to get through a round or two at least. Thanks!

The post Haunted Minds Book Club Rumble! appeared first on Alan Baxter.

I’m teaming up with the Queensland Writers Centre to run my Write the Fight Right workshop online in June. Places are limited, of course, but it should be a lot of fun. You can find all the details and sign up via the link below.

https://queenslandwriters.org.au/events/write-the-fight-right-with-alan-baxter

The post Write the Fight Right online workshop June 2026 appeared first on Alan Baxter.

Hello fiends.

How the fuck are ya? Things aren’t really getting any better, are they? I do my best to stay optimistic and positive, but these are trying times. Someone said recently that the human brain wasn’t designed to know what the worst people in the world are thinking every fifteen minutes, but the internet forces us to know it, and there’s truth in that. Just the same as there have always been horrible people and fucking idiots in the world, but they used to be separated by geography. The internet has allowed those pricks to find each other and get organised. Like all things, the internet has been a force for incredible good and also incredible bad.

I was commenting recently how the internet is the last democratised media we have left. Oligarchs are buying up literally every other form of media, unrestricted by monopoly, content or even truth-telling laws, and the internet is the last place we can converse and share ideas outside of billionaire psychopath influence. Of course, they’re trying to control that too, with algorithms and Elon turning Twitter into a cess pit of hate and everything else. And it’s no coincidence that the absolute slurry of AI polluting every inch of the digital sphere is working exactly as intended. You can’t trust anything any more, be it images, video, text – the erosion of trust has been insanely rapid and is almost complete. Some of are continually railing against the rot, but so many people are either lapping it up in a post-truth haze (“I don’t care if it’s AI, it’s cute!”) or they’re turning away from the internet completely. Which might seem like a smart move – which is, in fact, a smart move in many ways, especially for mental health – but it all plays into the hands of the oligarchs who want to control all messaging.

Sorry, didn’t mean to get all heavy on your collective arse. The point I was planning to make, and there is optimism here, is that we need to take back the democratised internet. Things like this newsletter, our own personal websites, online groups that aren’t polluted by an algorithmic feed of idiocy and hate. All of which is to say that I can’t tell you how grateful I am to have you good folks subscribed and interested in hearing from me. It’s nice to think you’re here because you want to be and I’m not yelling into an abyss. So much social media lately feels like that, and all too often the abyss yells back.

So, thank you for being here and let’s all do our best to maintain these genuine human connections in a sea of artificiality and bigoted rhetoric. Real people get hurt by online bigotry in genuine and long-lasting ways, but real people can also stand up for those copping the worst of it. It’s essential, in fact, that we do stand up for what’s good and right. We stand with the most marginalised because we’re all in this together and no one is expendable. No one is acceptable collateral damage.

Okay, let’s move on. Before anything else, I want to thank my pal, author and all around good egg, Damon Young (yes, he is an actual egg, which is weird because he looks like a person, but there you go) for correcting something I said last time. I was talking about how summer was finally striking here in Tassie and I said:

Hot and dry with that uniquely Tasmanian sun that’ll sear the skin off your bones if you stand in it too long. That’s more to do with the state of the ozone layer above than anything about Tassie in particular, but there it is.

Well, interestingly, Damon pointed me to this article: ​https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-15/tasmanian-heat-feels-hotter-than-on-mainland/10705112​ which explains that the ozone here is really not an issue and it’s more likely “the quality of Tasmania’s air, which means the sun’s rays don’t have to compete with pollutants”. Which is kinda awesome, really. The air here is amazing. But just like every cloud has a silver lining, so does every silver lining, by definition, have a cloud. Clean air = harsher sun. Eh, I’ll take it. Just have to remember to cover up and use sunscreen.

Thanks, Damon!

In other news, things are moving along with The Rise. It’s been really well-received so far, which is a huge relief. All the early reviews are overwhelmingly positive. Please do help me spread the word about these books – your influence as readers is huge and word of mouth is powerful magic.

Otherwise in my publishing life there’s not much going on right now. Loads of irons in lots of fires, of course, but none ripening yet (it takes an award-winning author to mix a metaphor that thoroughly). Of course, I’ll let you know any news as soon as I can. I do, however, have some news regarding public appearances. You heard it here first: in April and May I’ll be a guest at events in the Gold Coast, Melbourne and Hobart.

It’s an absolute thrill to be joining the awesome Supanova tour once again. I’ll be a guest at Supanova Gold Coast on April 11th and 12th, and then at Supanova Melbourne on April 18th and 19th. That’s my birthday weekend, so hopefully it’ll be extra special.

Then there’s an event much nearer home. I’ll have a table at the Tasmanian Indie Author Book Fair in Hobart on May 9th and 10th. Details of those events can all be found here:

Supanova Gold Coast, April 11th and 12th

​https://www.supanova.com.au/events/gold-coast-2026/event-home/​

Supanova Melbourne, April 18th and 19th

​https://www.supanova.com.au/events/melbourne-2026/event-home/​

Indie Author Book Fair, Hobart – May 9th and 10th

​https://tassieindieauthorbookfair.com.au/​

I will also be heading to Sydney later in the year, but more on that nearer the time.

What I’ve Been Enjoying

I was a huge fan of the Preacher comics back in the day (by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon, with incredible painted covers by Glenn Fabry). I only discovered recently that they’ve made a TV show of it. So I’ve been bingeing that. I’m currently halfway through Season 2 and really enjoying it. It’s close to the comics in some ways and quite divergent in others, but it’s hugely entertaining viewing.

I also kept seeing ads for a new movie called Ready or Not 2. I hadn’t even heard of the first one, so I tracked it down and watched that and it was brilliant. Genuinely bonkers fun with some really good lore behind the mayhem. And Samara Weaving is fantastic – I plan to track down all her horror outings, she’s a scream queen/final girl of the highest order. I can’t wait for number 2 at the movies now.

When it comes to reading, I’ll give that egg, Damon Young, another shout out. He’s a fiction and non-fiction author, an actual philosopher, and his latest book is Immortal Gestures. We’re invited to join Young as he “sheds light on thirteen curious gestures. Drawing equally from classical poetry and science-fiction, heavy metal and ballet, Young illuminates our varied humanity from prehistory to today.” It’s a really good read, delivered with intelligence and wit. I enjoyed it.

I mentioned Dungeon Crawler Carl last time, and that series is just going ballistic at the moment. I’ve read the second one now as well and it’s also great.

I’m a huge fan Luke Arnold’s Fetch Philips books. You might know Luke better as Long John Silver in Black Sails or Michael Hutchence in INXS: Never Tear Us Apart, but he’s a bloody good author too and writes a series of fantasy noir novels not to be missed. The fourth is the latest and it’s called Whisper in the Wind, which I will be getting to soon, but I’ve just read the third in the series, One Foot in the Fade, and it’s excellent. These books really do get better with every volume.

Lastly, I got to read an advanced copy of Joanne Anderton’s new novella, due out at the end of April from Bad Hand Books. It’s called Pixerina: A Haunting, and it’s absolutely fucking fantastic I genuinely can’t recommend it highly enough. Go in without knowing too much and be transported.

Okay, that’s enough from me for this month. Big love to you all, and remember, there are more good people than bad, the bad people are just really loud. So we stand up to be heard at every opportunity. Keep in touch, keep reading the good stuff and spreading the word about it, and I’ll catch you next time.

Al

The post Keeping human connections appeared first on Alan Baxter.

Hi Alen,

I just finished exploring your work and felt compelled to say how much I appreciated your voice. It’s rare to find writing that feels both intimate and assured.

I’m an author as well, and I truly value conversations with other writers about what inspires them and how their stories take shape. If you’d be open to a brief exchange, I’d love to connect.

And if possible, I’d be happy to take a look at your book , please do share the link.

With kind regards,

Mark Lawrence

Can’t even spell my fucking name right. But for one, why the fuck would Mark Lawrence (or anyone else for that matter) write an email like this? If they’ve “just finished exploring” my work, why the fuck do they need a link? And would kind of connection are they really after? Obviously, they’re just fishing for a response of any kind to indicate a rube on the line, then they’ll slowly guide things around to whatever version of the scam this one is. At some point they’ll ask for money, of course.

Here’s another:

Hi,

I recently came across your work, and I was really struck by the honesty in your storytelling and the way you blend personal experience with universal truth. As a fellow author, I deeply appreciate writing that challenges and moves readers the way yours does.

I just wanted to reach out to say how much I admired your work. It’s inspiring to see writing that’s both fearless and artful.

Warm regards,

Michael Graydon

What a fucking empty and pointlessly generalised load of old shite. As is my wont with this stuff, because I decided to post about it, I sent a short reply: Which book did you enjoy?

You’d think it would be easy for the AI scam shitstain to target their attack a little here, right? They can’t even be bothered with that:

Hello Alan,

I really enjoyed your book it was a great read. The atmosphere and suspense throughout the story were truly engaging, and it kept me interested from beginning to end. Your storytelling style made the experience very memorable.

I’m curious to know what inspired you to write it. I’d also love to hear about some of the challenges you face as an author, whether it’s during the writing process itself or in areas like editing and publishing.

Best regards,

Michael Graydon

Which book, motherfucker?! * deploys goose meme *

Again, just fishing to hook me in and then get around to asking for money. I can’t be bothered to follow it up any further, we know how it’s going to go. I am so fucking sick of AI and the way it’s ruining everything and turning its users brains into absolute sludge. As if this job isn’t hard enough. Absolute zero tolerance. Fuck AI.

EDIT to add: I’ve had four of these emails today, including one that’s identical to the Mark Lawrence one in every word, only from a different author at a different email address. It’s just so tiring.

The post The new AI fan scam appeared first on Alan Baxter.

Gulpepper Bundle – AU$85 (in Australia) – Click Here!

When you click the link and enter an address anywhere outside Australia it will calculate the postage at checkout. You can find out the cost before committing to buy, of course.

The post Gulpepper Mythos Merch Bundle appeared first on Alan Baxter.

The Rise has risen and other stuff

Hi fiends

It’s newsletter time again. I’m getting a bit better at some kind of regularity with these, but I’m sure it won’t last. Seems like summer has finally hit the Apple Isle down here at the foot of the southern hemisphere. Hot and dry with that uniquely Tasmanian sun that’ll sear the skin off your bones if you stand in it too long. That’s more to do with the state of the ozone layer above than anything about Tassie in particular, but there it is. I’m not a fan, personally. One of the best things about living here is the much more European climate, especially the lack of humidity found on the mainland. But we still have to endure a summer that is still unmistakably Australian. Ah, it’ll be over soon enough and back to the cold I love.

Talking of mainland Australia, in perhaps the most forced segue this side of a commercial news bulletin, I have a new book out! The Rise: Tales From The Gulp 3 is alive and out in the world. Set in the strange and dangerous harbour town of Gulpepper, somewhere on the New South Wales south coast, this third volume of five novellas brings the total official tales to fifteen and marks a kind of completion.

I will most definitely write more stuff set in this fictional geography I’ve created. After all, that’s largely why I created it, my own personal playground of the weird, but I think I’m done with the “official” tales now. By which I mean collected novellas like The Gulp, The Fall and The Rise.

I have a new novel out on submission right now that’s set in Monkton, Blood Covenant is set in the hills outside Enden, several short stories and novellas are loosely connected. The Gulpepper Mythos (which I wrote about in detail here) will continue to grow. But the Tales From The Gulp as a trilogy of three novella collections feels kinda complete now.

I really hope you’ll give this new one a go if you’ve enjoyed the others, and if you haven’t read any Gulpepper Mythos yet, now is a great time to start. I’m even doing specially priced bundles through my website, but all the books are available everywhere you’d expect too.

Please do help me spread the word about these and all my other books. Word of mouth is insanely powerful magic and really the only thing that ever works.

To offset the self-promotion, here’s a fantastic pair of portraits of my hounds, Rufus and Maximo, taken by the talented Luke Halasz. Look at those good boys.

Rufus left and Maximo right by Luke Halasz.

In case you missed it, I posted recently about the disappearance of the mass market paperback size of books, so if you’re interested to read about why books come in various sizes (from my admittedly limited perspective) you can find that post here.

What I’ve Been Enjoying

So let’s move on and talk about other people’s stuff. I’ve had some amazing book and TV pleasures lately. Starting with TV, I finished Season 2 of Generation V. This is a spin-off series of The Boys and it’s brilliant in its own right as well as setting up the 5th and final season of The Boys in really interesting ways. I’ve long been a fan of the Fallout games, and the TV series of that just finished season 2 as well. They’re doing an amazing job of telling a really interesting story while also paying superb homage to the games. Ella Purnell is brilliant in it.

With movies, I watched one called The Monkey. It’s absolutely bonkers and I recommend you go in knowing nothing and you’ll have a fabulous time. I also watched a film called The Endless, which has been out a while now, and it blew my mind. One of the best things I’ve seen in recent years, it’s a masterpiece. Now I need to find everything else these two filmmakers have put out, because they’re amazing.

In terms of reading, I might have already read my 2026 book of the year. Keith Rosson’s latest, Coffin Moon, is outstanding. A vampire novel that kinda does for vamps what Stephen Graham’s Jones’s book, Mongrels, did for werewolves. Talking of SGJ, his new one, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, is excellent. Maybe his best since Mongrels, but I think that werewolf book will always be my fave of his. A novella called The Night Guest by Hilda Knuttsdottir was also excellent.

There’s massive hype around Matt Dinniman’s series of Dungeon Crawler Carl books at the moment. Jeff Hays narrates the audio and the combo is truly outstanding. I’ve only read the first one but I think I’ll be going back for more. I also enjoyed the latest from Chuck Tingle, Bury Your Gays, which might be my favourite of his horror novels thus far.

Lastly, a reread, Galilee by Clive Barker. An amazing sprawling, erotic, epic family history about divine beings and their relationship to one of America’s richest families. I think it’s a really underrated Barker classic.

Okay, that’s all from me for now. Please do help me spread the word about the Tales From The Gulp if you’re in any way able to. Otherwise, be well, be kind, fuck fascists and fuck gen-AI.

Big love from me.

Alan

​

The post Newsletter 16th February 2026 appeared first on Alan Baxter.

There’s been a lot of people advocating online recently for the return of the Mass Market Paperback or MMPB. It’s that classic pulp size, especially of genre fiction of around 7 x 4 inch (17.5  x 10.5 cm). The type you’d find in racks at newsagents as well as filling the shelves of bookstores. Usually made with cheaper, thinner paper in the pages and cheaper inking techniques, they weren’t really built to last. They were made to sell in huge numbers, be read fast and if they got battered and broken in the process, who cares? They were a cheap consumable form of reading. As it happens, they’ve proven surprisingly durable. I still have loads of them.

But, for a variety of reasons, that particular size has fallen out of fashion. It’s partly as simple as shelf real estate. A bigger book takes  up more space on a bookshop shelf and is more likely to be noticed. But it’s more than that.

The MMPB really had its heyday from the 1960s to around the mid-90s. Then the rise of the Trade Paperback, what’s become the classic 6 x 9 inch (23 x 15 cm) size (or in some cases, for some reason, 6 x 9.5 inch), started to eclipse it. Similar in size to hardcovers, but at a much cheaper price point, Trade Paperbacks became the primary paperback format, at least in the first round of publication. In Australia (and I’m sure elsewhere) stores started demanding that size to accompany or closely follow the hardback release. Or, if there was no hardcover, Trade had to be the first size released if the publisher wanted any chance of getting into the bigger chain stores and airports and so on. The smaller size would then be released later, assuming sales were good enough. Which, of course, they often weren’t, because so many readers, especially genre readers, wanted MMPB or B-Format (8 x 5 inch or 20.5 x 12.5 cm), not Trade. So they waited. Because they waited, the book didn’t sell well, and no smaller edition was released. Publishing is fucking infuriating.

For whatever reason, almost certainly based around production costs, the B-Format became the size of choice over the MMPB when sales led to a smaller edition release after Trade. There seems to have been a period of crossover where books were released as only MMPB or they followed the pattern described above, but that didn’t last long. This process of publishers releasing first as hardcover (maybe), then as trade paperback, then (if an author was lucky) as B-Format became a standard practice and the days of the MMPB were largely done and dusted.

There is some speculation that the rise of ebooks killed the MMPB, as the ebook became the mass format of choice for cheap reading. Cheaper even than the MMPB and rising in popularity at a furious rate since the early 2000s.

Regardless of all this, it seems that the majority of readers became less and less enamoured of the MMPB anyway. Sales of MMPBs steadily declined and production costs increased. Publishers were reluctant to raise the cost of MMPBs above US$9.99, so the ebook and trade paperback rose to prominence, with a B-Format release later if you were lucky.

Of course, this is a huge set of generalisations. No event happens in isolation and things like this fluctuate until some equilibrium is eventually found. These days, some Big-5 publisher books are released only in B-format, some in hardcover and trade and never B-Format, some in all three, and so on. The one overriding truth seems to be that the days of the MMPB are long behind us.

And a decision by ReaderLink to stop distributing MMPBs at the end of 2025 might be the final nail in the coffin.

But there’s a strong nostalgia for the format. As you can see by the photo at the top, I’ve had books published in almost all sizes except MMPB. There’s a part of me that would love to see one of my horror novels available in that size. It’s a classic. But I’m not sure it’ll happen.

When I put out my own stuff, I default to the Digest size (8.5 x 5.5 inch) as that allows a more comfortable size than a trade (more like a MMPB) but without resorting to a tiny font to keep the page count, and therefore cost, down. It’s a better production cost, and therefore cover price, than B-Format. On my shorter books like The Roo I go for B-Format.

That’s a personal preference. A lot of indie publishers still go with the Trade Paperback size, which was especially pushed at the start of the Print On Demand explosion. I think that’s because it allows for the best balance of production cost to retail cost. But I find Trade Paperbacks too bulky and annoying to hold for the most part. B-Format or Digest is a much more comfortable reading experience in my opinion. I encourage any indie publishers I work with to use the Digest size for paperback and Trade size for hardcovers. That’s where I think the sweet spot is.

Regardless, I don’t think we’ll see a return to MMPBs with modern production being the way it is. I think B-Format is likely to be the smallest we’ll get. (The UK has A-Format, which is about ¾” smaller all around than the US B-Format, which makes it only slightly larger than the old MMPB size, but I’m not sure how persistent that size is or will remain.)

All this is just observation and speculation on my part from twenty-odd years in publishing and more than double that as an avid reader and lover of books. My prediction is that ebooks (and audio) will continue to dominate one end of the market, with hardcover releases becoming ever more rare and only for special editions and the most guaranteed top sellers through the Big-5 publishers. In the middle, we’ll see B-Format and Trade filling the majority of shelves, with Digest/Demy somewhere in the middle, most likely mainly through indie publishers.

We’ll see how accurate that prediction is as the years roll on.

The post What’s In A Size or Where Have All The MMPBs Gone? appeared first on Alan Baxter.