In February of 2015, when HarperCollins announced its plans to publish Go Set a Watchman (either the first draft or the sequel of Mockingbird, depending on whom you ask) - ostensibly with the full approval of the notoriously reclusive and press-shy Lee - many speculated that Carter was manipulating her elderly client. The decision to discontinue the mass-market paperback edition is only the latest in a series of controversies surrounding Carter. Publisher’s Lunch reports that Grand Central sold almost 567,000 copies of the mass-market Mockingbird in 2015. That license is set to expire at the end of April, and according to emails obtained by the New Republic, it will not be renewed.

The estate licenses most of Mockingbird's printing rights to various publishers: HarperCollins publishes the trade paperback edition (as well as the hardcover and special editions), but up until now the mass-market paperback rights have been licensed to Grand Central, an imprint of Hachette. The copyright for To Kill a Mockingbird is owned by Lee's estate, now executed by Lee's lawyer, Tonja Carter, in the wake of Lee's death in February. Mockingbird costs $8.99 in mass-market paperback, as opposed to $14.99 in trade paperback. Your first copy of the novel was probably the mass-market edition, with the aforementioned lavender cover and the picture of a bird flying past Boo Radley’s tree. The tight printing of mass-market paperbacks makes them slightly harder to read and hence unpopular with adult buyers, but it also makes them budget-friendly, and thus extremely popular with schools.

Mass-market paperbacks are printed on flimsy paper with the lines of text packed tightly together they're far less expensive to produce and ship than trade paperbacks, which are identical to their corresponding novels' hardcover editions on the inside but bound in paper instead of cloth. Related Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is a perfectly built novel, despite its flaws

To kill a mockingbird paperback