For some time, I’ve been pointing out the decline of the mass market paperback, and the latest issue of Publishers Weekly contained an article entitled “An Ode to the Mass Market Paperback,” which effectively announced the demise of the pocket-sized paperback book with the decision by Readerlink to discontinue distribution at the end of this year.

So what brought about the decline and pending death of the mass market paperback?

The major factors were a significant increase in production costs combined with the decline and then collapse of the distribution network that fueled the growth of mass-market paperbacks. In the late 1980s, publishers could use a network of more than 600 independent distributor wholesalers to deliver inventory to more than 100,000 outlets where magazines and newspapers were being sold. By the late nineties, that network had been replaced by a few national distributors, who couldn’t or didn’t serve the bulk of the smaller magazine outlets.

Personally, I’ve also noted that book sections in big box stores, such as Walmart, are smaller and hold fewer titles, and especially fewer fantasy and science fiction titles. Grocery stores have reduced or eliminated book and magazine sections. At one time, Anderson Merchandisers supplied books to big-box retailers, but, from what I can tell, after Readerlink purchased the company, the quality and breadth of books provided declined.

According to Publishers Weekly, Circana BookScan recently reported that U.S. mass market sales plunged from 131 million books in 2004 to 21 million in 2024, a drop of about 84%, and sales this year through October were about 15 million units.

Then, add to that the cost. The last book of mine to be issued in a mass-market edition was Contrarian, in July of 2024, and the list retail price was $14.99. The Amazon discounted price was $13.30, but the ebook price after six months dropped to around ten dollars.

The bottom line is that is costs more than $10 to produce and distribute a mass market paperback and only a small fraction of readers are willing to pay more than $10.

After tearing down the East Wing,
Hark the herald angels sing.
Who’s the chump?
You… or Donald Trump?

Last week, on Friday, I mailed a book to a relative in a neighboring state. I sent it priority mail from my local post office well before the afternoon mail is scheduled to be dispatched. USPS gave me an expected delivery date of Tuesday.

I suspected it might take longer, but checked the tracking number on Wednesday. It was still “in transit.” On Thursday afternoon, I checked again. Still in transit, but projected to be delivered by 9:00 P.M. on Friday. On Friday, it finally arrived in mid-afternoon.

These days, over ninety percent of our mail consists of political or charitable solicitations, advertising circulars, and catalogues from companies and merchandizers we’ve never used. The remaining ten percent consists of periodic bills and magazines to which we’ve subscribed (since I read them in bits at times and places where it’s not feasible or convenient to read electronic copies). We now also get Amazon package deliveries on Sunday… from USPS.

So why does it take more than a week for USPS to deliver priority mail to a town on a paved state highway less than five hundred miles away?

A reader recently sent me a book to be autographed and included return postage and a label. I signed the book and took it to the post office to send it. The clerk informed me that the zip code didn’t match the reader’s address. Since I was fairly certain that the reader knew her own address, I told the clerk to send it (priority mail) to the address on the label. When I checked to see if it had been delivered, the tracking software told me it was “delivered to the original sender,” if a day later than projected. Since it didn’t come back to me, I thought it was delivered to the reader, which was confirmed later by the recipient.

When we moved to Cedar City, the mail was processed here. About fifteen years ago, the Post Office decided to process the local mail in Provo, some two hundred miles to the north. Around five years ago, they switched to processing Cedar City’s mail to Las Vegas, so a bill from a company in Cedar City makes a four-hundred-mile circuit to be delivered across town. I have a hard time believing that this is cost-effective.

It’s also caused problems with voting, because voting in Utah is by mail, and that means you can’t mail your ballot as late as the day before election because it might not be stamped (in Las Vegas) until after the election. It might not even meet the deadline if you mailed it the Saturday before, according to some reports.

But Amazon packages get here in two-three days.

So… tell me, what’s the priority for the Post Office?

With gala twenties parties at Mar-a-lago
Can a Crash be far to go?
Who’s the chump?
You… or Donald Trump?

Trump rages on about needing to stop drug trafficking, and his Department of Defense/War keeps sinking boats and small ships leaving Venezuela, claiming that they’re drug traffickers.

So why did Trump pardon Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras who has been serving a 45-year sentence in a U.S. prison for drug trafficking and who accepted millions of dollars in bribes from drug traffickers connected to the notorious Sinaloa Cartel?

But the pardon of Hernández was scarcely the first pardon of high-profile drug traffickers. Others pardoned include Ross Ulbricht, creator of the dark web marketplace Silk Road a major conduit for anonymous drug trafficking, who had been serving multiple life sentences, and who received a full pardon in January 2025; Larry Hoover, the leader of the Chicago-based Gangster Disciples, who was serving multiple life sentences for crimes linked to his role in a violent, multi-state drug trafficking operation received a grant clemency from Trump in May 2025; Michael Harris (Harry O)the co-founder of Death Row Records, had his sentence for cocaine offenses commuted by Trump in his first term and was fully pardoned in 2025 after endorsing Trump in the 2024 election.

It “might” have something to so with Sunday’s Honduran election, since Trump wrote on Truth Social on administration would be “very supportive” of Nasry “Tito” Asfura’s government if Asfura won. Trump then announced he would be “granting a Full and Complete Pardon” to Hernández. And followed up his words by pardoning him.

But when the ongoing election vote-counting results shifted to favor the centrist candidate, Trump vowed there would be “hell to pay” and immediately claimed “election fraud,” because, of course, any election that doesn’t go the way he wants must be fraudulent.

The situation so far – pardons for convicted drug kingpins and heads of state bought by drug money, but total destruction for boats merely suspected of carrying drugs, and apparently a tight election see-sawing back and forth between the Trump-backed conservative and the moderate centrist candidate while Trump continues efforts to sway the results of the ballot-boxes.