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the complete review - publishing
The Bantam Story
by
Clarence Petersen
general information | our review | links | about the author
| Title: | The Bantam Story |
| Author: | Clarence Petersen |
| Genre: | Non-fiction |
| Written: | 1970 |
| Length: | 94 pages |
| Availability: | The Bantam Story - US |
| The Bantam Story - UK | |
| The Bantam Story - Canada |
- Twenty-Five Years of Paperback Publishing
- With an Appendix of: 'Bantam Books In Print (June 1970)'
- A 'Revised and updated' edition was published in 1975, subtitled: Thirty Years of Paperback Publishing
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Our Assessment:
B- : covers a good bit of ground, if not in sufficient depth or critically enough
See our review for fuller assessment.
The complete review's Review:
[Note: the print copy I have of this is the 1970 edition, on which this review is based; I have, however, also looked at the e-version of the revised 1975 edition (which adds five years to the overview, making for: Thirty Years of Paperback Publishing); changes/differences are noted, generally in [square brackets].]
The Bantam Story was commissioned and published by Bantam Books (and apparently given away, on request, rather than sold) -- and Bantam Books, rather than the author, has the copyright to it; still, author Petersen assures readers in his Foreword that: "Unlike most 'house' books I've read, this one acknowledges accomplishments of rivals", which is ... at least something.
(Apparently they decided that they wanted that stated slightly more clearly, as the revised 1975 edition excises the "I've read" .....)
With all that -- and given its length, a mere 94 pages if we don't count the Appendix -- it's clear that one can't expect a deeply probing critical company-history, but that's okay; a quick introduction will do, too -- and, after all, Petersen notes that: "To tell the story properly, however, is to tell the story of mass-market paperback publishing itself", so there's the promise of that too.
While promising an overview of Twenty-Five Years of Paperback Publishing, the first of Petersen's ten chapters [twelve, in the 1975 edition] looks back further, quickly surveying: 'The Paperback Revolution: 1777-1945'.
From the beginning, then -- Bantam's first list of twenty titles coming out at the start of 1946 -- the numbers were impressive: "Printings started at about 200,000 copies each, with occasional reprints of hot titles. Some first printings of novels and westerns went as high as 600,000 copies".
Interestingly, however, advances were kept low -- generally to $2,000 --, as:
More money could safely have been guaranteed on mysteries and westerns, but that would have made it harder to get good novels for $2,000. The good novels, in those days, could not be depended upon to make that much money.The big print numbers apparently did not always work out, Petersen quoting Arthur May about annus horribilis 1954, "the year when returns reached fantastic proportions, with Bantam alone taking back an unheard of 10 million copies". Under Oscar Dystel the ship was righted -- though as the industry changed a lot more was paid out at the start for rights, the 'guarantees against royalties' on the paperback editions of hardcovers in some cases going through the roof; Petersen lists a few of the titles and numbers, of acquisitions by Bantam as well as others ($350,000 for Portnoy's Complaint, for example). [It was a trend that continued: the pay-outs mentioned in the 1970 edition of this book peak at James Michener's The Source ($750,000), which isn't even good enough to start the list from the mid-seventies in the 1975 edition, which ranges from Agatha Christie's Curtain ($925,000) to E. L. Doctorow's Ragtime ($1,850,000).]
Petersen looks at everything that goes into the making and selling of paperbacks -- down to the art work and selection of cover-images and even just the paper that goes into the books: "A single publishing house, such as Bantam, will average of 1,200 tons of paper a month" [and a mere five years later that's increased fifty percent, the 1975 edition giving 1,800 tons]. Distribution is also addressed, including the international trade -- a whole chapter devoted to 'Books Across the Sea', where he quotes:
“You'll find the heat off in Poland one year and they'll buy 60,000 books,” says Davies. “Then the iron curtain will close, and they won’t buy another book for a year or so. Then you'll find a country like Indonesia, which is in dire need of books, and you'll get large orders. But unfortunately they have little money available, and their orders suddenly stop. Then you'll get a country like Burma, which is very peculiar. It orders so rarely from you that it is no longer on your map, and then one day you open the mail and they want 100 copies of The Complete Book of Roses or a cookbook.”The Appendix listing all 'Bantam Books In Print (June 1970)' is also of interest [as is then the comparison with the even fuller list found at the end of the revised 1975 edition] -- which includes, for example, sixteen books by Graham Greene (just a few less than Georgette Heyer) but dozens by Emile [sic] Loring (you think they'd spell the name of one of their most popular authors ["Bantam has printed more than 34.5 million copies of 50 Emilie Loring romances", the 1975 edition notes] correctly ... (they do in the 1975 edition)) and Kenneth Robeson, among others.
For a quick overview of the heyday of mass-market publishing The Bantam Story is certainly adequate, and there are many points of interest -- but even here you're certainly better served with the expanded 1975 edition. Still, this is far from a definitive publisher-history -- but it does have the advantage of being a slim little pocket-sized volume, and does cover many of the basics (as well as offering the useful list of title is print at the time).
- M.A.Orthofer, 23 July 2026
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Reviews: Other books of interest under review:
- See Index of Books on Books and Publishing
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American journalist and editor Clarence Petersen lived 1933 to 2011.
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© 2026 the complete review
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