How Paperbacks Transformed the Way Americans Read

How Paperbacks Transformed the Way Americans Read, article.
Here’s a little perspective: In 1939, gas cost 10 cents a gallon at the pump. A movie ticket set you back 20 cents. John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, the year’s bestselling hardcover book, was $2.75. For a nation suffering 20 percent unemployment, books were an impossible expense.But in just one day, Robert de Graff changed that. On June 19, 1939, the tall, dynamic entrepreneur took out a bold, full-page ad in The New York Times: OUT TODAY—THE NEW POCKET BOOKS THAT MAY TRANSFORM NEW YORK’S READING HABITS.

Very cool article.
Ebooks is just the latest cheaper technology, and the latest ogre "which will destroy the industry", as media moguls cry every few years. I think what they mean is "it will destroy my job!" Every new technology is disruptive and will wipe out jobs, and those without vision and mobility are in danger. But others get big opportunities, very big.

Ebooks can globally become a market which is at least twenty times bigger than paper books ever were!