Remember the golden rule of trends: if the New York Times reports on something, it means it's automatically over. And while I can't be happier to see Ed Wyatt's piece on the growing prominence of trade paperback originals for literary fiction, there is certainly a whiff of, shall we say, retro about the whole thing since the concept dates back more than 20 years (when Jay McInerney's BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG CITY was issued in said format), as Gawker confirms in the Times archives.

"In the last four or five years, it's gotten hard to publish fiction by lesser-known authors, and even by some better-known authors," said Morgan Entrekin, the publisher of Grove/Atlantic. And when a book fails in hardcover, booksellers often will limit their orders for a paperback edition, making it harder to sell the author's next book. "When you're taking back 50 to 70 percent of the hardcover copies you shipped," Mr. Entrekin said, "the stores— rightfully so—are not willing to take another chance." He should know, having revived the PBO-only Black Cat to some acclaim, as does HarperPerennial's Carrie Kania, who says that the imprint will publish 22 paperback originals, up from 10 the year before.

Still, there's always the question of whether TPOs will be reviewed, but as Kania said, "increasingly, paperback originals are being treated as new books."