If you conducted a survey, I am fairly certain you’d find that the majority of readers prefer paperbacks to hardcover books. I have no stats to back this up, but I know what I’ve heard anecdotally for years. Paperbacks are lighter and smaller and more lithe, easier to put in a pocket or a backpack and carry around. They’re also significantly cheaper. Now that the kind of mass market paperbacks you could find in any local grocery or drugstore have officially been retired, you’d think that the mighty trade paperback would rule the world (of books, at least). But it’s not that simple. When my publisher originally planned for my debut essay collection to be a trade paperback original, I begged and begged them to change their minds. I had written a humorous collection, which is the genre of book that is ground zero for the TPO format, but I also wanted the essays to be seen as literary.…