According to the booktrade gurus, 1986 was the year that “hardback books began selling like paperbacks”. I honestly had previously wondered when the publishing industry started down the road of ordering up millions of first run hardbacks, all set to sell at hardback prices.

Apparently it all started when Stephen King, Danielle Steele and Tom Clancy, started to put pen to paper, churning out books at a regular schedule.

All this is from a pretty interesting piece in the Telegraph today.