During World War II, the United States government supplied more than 123 million free paperback copies of 1,322 book titles to our armed services.
These weren’t the first paperback books, however. Pocket Books first mass-produced paperback books in America in 1939. The first ten titles were each published with a run of 10 thousand copies. These paperbacks were sold mostly in bus stations and in drug and “Five and Dime” stores.
Early-World War II book collection drives designed to supply those in the Armed Services had proved unsuccessful for a variety of reasons. Books were either in poor condition, too bulky or were considered uninteresting.
In February 1942, representatives from a number of prominent publishing houses including Doubleday, G.P. Putnam, W.W. Norton, Random House, as well as the New York Times Book Publishers Bureau and the American Booksellers Association met to discuss the problem of book collection and distribution to the military. After a month of discussion, the group voted to form the Council on Books in Wartime. At W.W. Norton’s suggestion, the council’s slogan was “Books are weapons in the war of ideas.”
Due to wartime rationing, publishers were allocated only 37.5% of the paper they used in 1939. As such, the Armed Services Edition paperback books used less paper. The largest book only 3/4 of an inch thick, sized to fit in a soldier’s pocket.
The millions of copies of paperback books produced by the Armed Services Editions during the war along with the post-war GI Bill produced an incredible surge in the demand of a wide cohort for mass market paperbacks.
From the back of one of the Armed Services Editions paperbacks:
“This book is published by Editions for the Armed Services, Inc., a non-profit organization established by the Council on Books in Wartime, which is made up of American Publishers of general (trade) books, librarians, and booksellers. It is intended for exclusive distribution to members of the American Armed Forces and is not to be resold or made available to civilians. In this way the best books of the present and past or supplied to members of our Armed Forces in small, convenient, and economical form. New titles will be issued regularly.”