How do you know if a paperback is mass market or tradesize when that info isn't included here or on Amazon?

Hi there Adrianne,   The only way to check if the book is a trade  paper book on Amazon is to check the size of the book.   I do that all the time because I will not order mmpb.   PBS does not differentiate between mmpb and Trade pb.

You can usually tell by the price if the book dimensions are not mentioned on Amazon for some reason.

mass markets are almost always $7.99, sometimes $6.99, sometimes $8.99 or $9.99 (usually the "taller" mass markets).

Trade paperbacks (I don't want to say always but it's close to always) start out at more than $10.00, usually more than $15.00, and the price is usually either a flat dollar amount or something that ends in 95.

The exception to this rule is YA ... YA larger paperbacks are usually $9.99 or $8.99, andmass market size is pretty rare in YA.

Thanks.  I've found quite a few lately on Amazon that didn't include the book size.

Good question Adrienne, I don't know either as I find Amazon doesn't always include that info. I wish PBS and Amazon did include that.

This drives me bonkers!  I really wish there was a better way to differentiate the sizes. I have a lot of series collections and it makes me absolutely crazy when I have all MMP or trade, etc. and I receive a book that doesn't match the current series size. Messes up my bookcase visual display, LOL. Neurotic, I know... but hey, everyone has quirks. :D

One of the first things I tried to do when I started here was change paperback to mass market on posted books that I came across. The process was so complicated I gave up.

I pm the sender and ask if the book is a (fill in the blank).  I read in the discussion forums about how some listings share an ISBN for hardcover and paperback.  So I ask to make sure.  

Adrienne - 

Sometimes this will work (sometimes NOT!)

In the SEARCH Window put in the ISBN of the book you would like to know about. Hit SEARCH.

You will get a new page showing the book and basic info for that book - along side the picture of the book (if there is a picture) you will see several 'buttons' - one of these 'buttons'

 is labeled 'More Options' - select that label and you will get a 'drop-down menu' - scroll down the 'drop-down menu 9 places to a label marked 'Edit Book Data' - select Edit Book Data (no, we don't need to edit anything - just gonna' look at what might be posted in the measurement fields for any book listed in the PBS system (some books have measurements, some book have nada). I looked on your bookshelf and selected the book "Crazy In Love" by Luanne Rice, ISBN 9780553587814. 

When I looked at the data for this book using the 'Edit Book Data' button you can see that this ISBN has the following measurements: Height 6.69 inches, Width 4.17 inches, Thickness 1.18 inches, Weight 0.44 pounds....If I had a ruler sitting next to me I could visualize if this was a Mass Market type book or if it was in the realm of a Trade sized PB. - 

Does this work for all books? No. not all books have measurement data available to it. Could you edit the data? Well you could send in the measurement data and ask if they could update those fields....I do that sometimes (on slow days) when there is no description to a book I'm posting and I go take a look at the data fields.....When you 'edit' the data there is a box where you explain why you want the data to be edited (i.e. this is wrong or that is missing etc)...you won't be doing the actual editing just passing the info along to someone in PBS who has taken on the responsibility....they in turn will validate the 'new' info and if correct make the changes.

Pretty cool stuff available here at PBS.

Hope this might help you (and perhaps a few others)  a little bit....

Even the measurement (dimensions) data isn't foolproof -- it usually is for the edition available when the listing opened.  For example, if it was a trade-size paper, and later an mmp was also released under the same ISBN, we could have one/some of each posted to that listing.  If you really care, then it's best to ask or have an RC...

Yeah, that's life....the only thing certain in life is 'Death and Taxes' (so they say) - above is just a good rule of thumb....if a determination of Mass Market or Trade size paper back is important enough to you then you really need to send a PM to the person you ordered a book from - better yet you may need to make it part of your 'Requestor's Condition (etc)....moving right along...the above technique gives you a simple tool to determine (mostly) as to weather or not a paperback is a Mass Market or Trade sized paperback- infallible? No,

75 to 80% accurate? Possibly,

I'd give it a thumbs up.as it's better than nothing.....................

I've gotten Requestor's Conditions from other members who only wanted Mass Market sized books and they explained that they had limited space to store their books. Requestor's Conditions can easily be turned on and off from your Profile page...

I know lots of posters here who mention since they are 'keeping' books in a certain series, they want them all uniform.....the only way to get them consistently the same size when the same ISBN has been used for multiple sizes of a PB is to look at the dimension info.