Could someone please explain the difference to me. Thanks.

Mass market are the smaller ones, trade are the bigger ones, like hardback size only they are softcover.

Also the trade size are more expensive than the mass market paperbacks. Usually $13 - $16.

Oh okay, thanks!!

They generally have slightly nicer covers (better art, etc... similar to the hardcover) and sometimes nicer paper for the pages as well. Though that isn't true all the time. :shrug:

Ok. I know this much, but does this mean that there's a wide variety of sizes in trade paperbacks? Presumably mass-market are only the real pocket-sized ones, about 17 (6 and a half inches), no more than 18 cm tall, right?

But then I have books which I have presumed are trade which are less than 20 cm tall (7 and 3/4 inches), and others 23 cm+ (9+ inches). Am I right that all of those are trade?

Excuse me while I run upstairs to measure books! :lol:

OK -- most of my trade size pb's measure 20-21 cm, but I've got a few that measure 23 cm too. So yes, there seems to be a bit of size variation there! They all tend to be several cm's wider than the mass markets.

Standard mass markets are about 17 cm tall. For a while there, they were trying to put out a slightly taller version (same width across as the other mmpb's), but happily I'm still not running into very many. That's just too many sizes! :rolleyes:

Just to make things even more complicated, there's a size bigger than trade, which I usually see listed as "soft cover." These can be the same size as a large hardback and thick, and tend to cost almost as much too. They tend to retail around $24-$28 USD. And honestly I don't understand why they make those. They're so big and heavy that the cover always gets damaged when you read them! For all that money you don't get much longevity, so why wouldn't you just get the hardcover? :shrug:

Thanks! This is exactly what I needed to know.

One more question, how misleading would it be to call the "soft cover" a trade ppb? Like if you offered one in a trade relay would it be ok?

I think that would be okay.... I would think as long as it definitely wasn't a HC and it wasnt a mm, then everything else would fall into the trade category - at least for the purposes of the relay.

Thanks!