My previous books have been designed and published by various book packagers and publishers and so are in various different sizes. I wonder which size readers like best? Next time, I want to self publish and will be doing all the layouts myself. Because of the size limitations of Word for Mac 2011 (which includes most of the features in Publisher for PC), I won't be able to go up to the size of 'The Ultimate Sashiko Sourcebook', as I need to include 3mm all round for trimming the pages and the widest page available in Word is already 8.5in. The smallest book is 'Compendium of Quilting Techniques' (also published in the same size as '200 Quilting Tips Techniques and Trade Secrets'), at 19 x 24.6 cm/7.5 x 9.68in. This is the narrowest one, with the smallest page size.
The paperback version of 'Japanese Quilt Blocks to Mix and Match' is 22.2cm/8.74in square, as are my other square format books. This is too wide v available page sizes for adding crop marks, and I don't want the limitations of the square format this time anyway.
The Ultimate Sashiko Sourcebook is 8.5 x 11in, too big to add the crop marks in Word, and quite a big page size.
'Simple Sashiko' is fairly similar in size to most Japanese sashiko books, at 19.3 x 26.3cm/7.59 x 10.35in. Japanese books are often around this size - I measured one for comparison and it was 7.5in wide x 10 1/8in, fractionally smaller.
I hope to go for a covered spiral binding for the next sashiko book, so the book can be laid flat to follow the instructions (NB - this can't apply to any Amazon print-on-demand copies, as they only do a glued binding). I think it would be good to have a slightly smaller page size, as then the book is a bit more portable and easier to tuck into a bag. Comments?
3 comments:
You can create custom page sizes in Word, and so are not limited to an 8.5 width. The issue, I believe, would be whether the publisher or publishing service can handle the given page size. Generally I prefer larger size books (easier to see illustrations, etc.) but it also depends on how many pages it has.
Not in Word 2011 for Macs. I've never used the PC version of that release, so I don't know if it is possible there. Quite likely, because an earlier PC version I had did allow custom page sizes rather than having you choose from a menu of preset sizes.
Apparently Word 2016 will let you set custom sizes too, but installing it means forking out for a new version of Office, and I'm not sure I want to do that just yet - especially when I need to set aside quite a big chunk of cash to finance the print run. Every time Word updates, I have to relearn it, as Microsoft tend to change the way various things work or where to find them in the menus.
The whole time you were talking about this size and that I am thinking the bigger it is the more likely it will lay flat.... and then you got to a spiral spine designed to lay flat as one works!!!!! That is the way to go..... especially this sort of book that is a "doing" book.
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