Re: Re: Fooled again! eBooks and truth in labelling

At 2:09 PM +0000 2/11/08, you wrote:
>From: Kent S. Larsen II
>......
>
>Sometimes publishers ask book designers to tighten up the book to reduce the page count as a money saving measure. Other times, as you have apparently seen, publishers have the book lengthened to beef it out and make it look like more than it is.
>
>Most of the time, however, book designers adjust these things in an attempt to make the book look better.
>.........
>Kent
>
>Oh Kent, what a cynical man you are! ;-)
>
>Book designers actually design; the purposes are manifold. Of course they include what you suspect. But probably not as much as you think.
>
>In fact just laying out a book for print can involve all sorts of problems which are far better solved by an expert. Then it may be to try to make the whole truly attractive and easy to read.
>
>Or the story may need particular treatment to underline the author's intentions. And so it goes on. When we move to the non-fiction areas this is even more true.
>
>If you look at C19 books you will soon see why there is a move to much more design these days... ;-)
>
>Joseph Harris
>


Uh, Joseph, I think we are saying the same thing.

Just so its clear, I've worked in book publishing for almost 20 years now. I publish books myself and do a little designing of the low-end books I publish in order to make them viable.

I didn't think I was being that cynical. In fact, I thought I was trying to mitigate and explain what Daniel P. B. Smith claimed -- which made it sound like publishers do this regularly.

I don't think that publishers bulk up books that often. Most of the decisions are for reasons of making the book look good, or, as you put it "attractive and easy to read."

But to say that publishers never bulk up books is quite naive. Much of my experience is in financial management at larger book publishers. Believe me, when the publisher wants to shave the length of the book to save money when the margins are critical, they do ask the designers to make it happen (usually just to cut the length down to the next signature). Designers are also sometimes asked to bulk up the book when its shorter than expected.

I have examples of this in my own library. I have a book called "Leadership is an Art" by Max DePree (Doubleday, 1989) ISBN 0-385-26496-8, hardcover. My estimate of the word count is 25,000 words, yet it has been laid out on a total of 160 pages (including frontmatter and blank pages). Full text pages come in at about 200 words per page. The leading looks like it is the equivalent of triple spacing in a word processor. IMO, it could have easlily been done in 96 pages or less.

Yes, the designer has made the book look "attractive and easy to read." But I'm also quite sure that the designer was asked to bulk up the book. BTW, the list price (in approx 1990) is 17.95. Perhaps reasonable for a book of 160 pages in hardcover. But really hard to justify for a hardcover of a book that is just 25,000 words.

Again, I don't claim this happens all the time. Its the exception, not the rule. But it does happen.

Kent




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