The Penguin Story of The Paperback Revolution

On July 30, 1935, the first Penguin book is published, starting the paperback revolution. From the article:verbatim

"The Penguin Story of The Paperback Revolution
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It is relatively easier in the present day world to always carry a book with us, either in a printed format or on an electronic device we can carry them where ever we want and whenever we want. But this wasn’t the care a hundred years ago. Ownership of books was more of a royalty thing back in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The culture of borrowing and lending books was more of a prominent trend than people being able to buy books on a regular basis. But vision of one man changed how people started to print and read books.

Allen Lane isn’t the man behind invention of paperbacks but he is definitely the man who popularised the concept amongst the masses. What was regarded as ‘cheap’ and ‘lowbrow culture’, became the new identity of books. The change brought about by the penguin books can be categorised into two sections – readers and publishers. For Allen Lane Penguin books were ‘the means of converting book-borrowers into book-buyers’ (‘All About Penguin Books’, The Bookseller, 1935) which he was successful in doing so. The first print run of Penguin books had a list of ten such stories that were assortment of ‘Lane’s own tastes and the sort of reader he was looking for’ (Raymond MacKenzie, Penguin Books). It was his understanding of the market and people’s needs that made the book series a huge hit. This revolution was also one of the first indicators of the changing role of the readers as receptors of the books. If we analyse the role of readers of Penguin books by using Darton’s communication circuit it can be noticed that the readers had a direct relation with the publishers in Penguin’s circuit. This was the case only because of Allen Lane, who wanted to target the audience of middlebrow culture.

The second dimension of this revolutionary movement was publishing. Allen Lane was among the many few who wanted to break out of the conventional forms of Publishing. Before him, the Albatross series (from which the physical form of Penguin was inspired) in Germany tried to create a stir but failed. It was Lane’s distinctive idea of creating just the ‘right’ book format and sale strategy that changed publishing industry. Lane’s idea of ‘mass marketing and production’ and ‘low price of 6p’ was the selling point of the books. His understanding of the mass audience and using the newly found modes of mass communication was what made the books approachable in the first place. Also his use of the book in ‘physical form’ made it sellable. His three main steps: ‘visually distinctive covers, unconventional sales outlets and rights bought from hardback publishers’ (John Feather, Alan Lane’s Idea in A History of British Publishing) helped revolutionise the paperback revolution. This strategy used by Lane also exhibits the importance of ‘peritext’ (the format and design) in the selling of book. Genette’s theory of peritext and epitext can be well applied to this revolution as both the physical value (peritext) as well as the buzz created by the strategy in selling the book (epitext).

Once the series were a huge hit, publishers first condemned the publishing strategy as it went ‘against the conventional forms of publishing’ but later on chose to go down the same route as it targeted a wider audience which meant a bigger market for the publishers to sell their books in. Therefore it can be safely said that it was the idea behind the making of books that revolutionised the movement than the books themselves."