A Pulp Renaissance?

There are plenty of blogs that talk about the game-changing effects of selling directly through the Kindle and Nook stores, as well as other distributors like Smashwords. So I’m not going to rehash all of that. My stance as an author should be pretty clear by now.

Instead, I’m going to talk a bit about the e-book revolution from the standpoint of a reader.

About ten years ago, I was reading Dashiell Hammett’s “Continental Op” stories. And I thought how cool it would be to have stories and books like that again. But pulp fiction seemed to have sailed. Vestiges still remained, in the form of men’s adventure books like “The Executioner” and the monthly releases from Harlequin. What appealed to me about books like that (and still does) is how easy and, well, fun they were to read. And it also helped that they were cheaper than the other paperbacks in the bookstore. Yeah, the quality was hit or miss, but if you only dropped a few bucks on them, as opposed to six or seven on a stand-alone title, what did it matter?

Prices in the bookstores have gone up now, even on the monthly release titles. And on Amazon, most paperbacks can be had secondhand for as little as a penny, plus about four dollars shipping. So there hasn’t been as much of an advantage to buying current pulps. But now we have programs like Kindle, Nook and Smashwords. And prices are good - often as low as $0.99 to $2.99. So I think we’re seeing a renaissance of pulp fiction.

Some will argue that the price of e-reading devices negates this theory. But here’s the thing: you don’t have to have a dedicated e-reader to read e-books. Millions upon millions of people now use smartphones, iPads and iPods, and other tablets and laptops. I think it’s fair to say that most households in the US at least have a desktop computer. And reading applications are available for all of these devices. Granted, most people aren’t going to lug around a Dell for the purpose of reading a $0.99 novel. But someone with an iPhone, waiting at the subway stop? A student sitting in class, bored with the lecture, taking notes on their iPad (Not that I would ever advocate classroom distractions…)? My own mom, who used to have a travel bag dedicated to the books she wanted to read on vacation, and now has an iPad as well?

The devices are already here, and people are already using them. Now, the product is here too. Some of it good, some of it not so much. Kinda like the Executioner books, or the monthly romances, or the old pulps of old. And the best part is, you can try samples for free of most of these books (as long as the author has made it available). A whole world of inexpensive, fun books is becoming available again.

Welcome back pulps! We’ve missed you.