Re: Fooled again! eBooks and truth in labelling

At 7:57 PM -0500 2/10/08, Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:
>For what it's worth, this problem is not solely limited to eBooks.
>
>Plain old ordinary print publishers are very creative in the way they
>vary type size, line spacing, and margins. I don't have a micrometer
>but I'm almost convinced that they vary paper thickness, too. The


I neglected to mention a couple of things about this.

First, paper thickness is also one of the design considerations. Some paper simply looks better than other paper for different types of books -- and yes, paper thicknesses vary. One of the measurements book designers need to know when selecting paper is its ppi -- pages per inch -- a measurement of thickness.

And like the other factors, publishers do sometimes use this to make the book look thicker, and more worth the price you pay. Other times, publishers pay more for a particular paper just because it makes the book look and feel more elegant or more like a quality book.

In the case of mass market paperbacks (often found in the airport book racks that Daniel mentions in his post), publishers are generally using the cheapest paper available for a particular ppi because in mass market paperbacks managing cost is about as critical as it can be in book publishing -- the margins are narrower, and you have to sell a lot more books to break even.


Second, you need to put these design issues in historical perspective. 150 years ago, book design was generally quite different than it is today. I publish public domain classics, among other things, and the page count for the books I design approach half the page count of the original book published 150 years ago. Designers then simply put less words on a page, gave more generous margins than we think necessary, and added more leading between lines than is often done today.


All in all, I don't think it is wise to assume that the book's "bulk" (i.e., thickness) as it is often called in the industry is manipulated just to make the book look thicker to the reader. There are a lot of considerations, and design is chief among them.

But it is true that publishers do "bulk up" their books when they come in shorter than expected.

I have a project I'm working on now where I'll have to do that. The book is made up of two historic short stories, the only ones that this author (who died in 1855) wrote. One story is about 5,000 words, the other is about 7,500. Add an introduction and ancillary material of another 5,000 words, and you see that I will have to "bulk up" the book considerably. I figure I can make it at least 64 pages, perhaps as many as 80 or 96 if the page size is relatively small.

I don't see much of an alternative, however. There simply isn't that much text to work with.

Kent




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