design & production

In publishing, design, and typography, the practice of using placeholder text in an interior layout or cover design is called “greeking” (though, ironically, it’s usually Latin). It’s a great way to get a feel for a finished design or font without having to have the final copy ready and in place. According to Wikipedia, it originates from the phrase “It’s Greek to me,” meaning it’s written in a foreign language that you don’t understand.

To make things more complicated, the placeholder text isn’t really Latin. Sure, it’s a section of Latin text by Cicero, but the words have been jumbled, altered, and removed, making it altogether nonsensical. “Greeked” text often starts with the phrase “lorem ipsum,” which translates loosely into “pain itself.”

If you’re in the need for some Greek, this Lorem Ipsum generator quickly supplies Greek text in whatever amount needed, and this fun Greeking Machine website takes it a step further by translating Greeked text into other languages ranging from Hillbilly to Techno Babble to (eek!) Marketing.

Image courtesy of Cheap Font Generator.

If you’re taking the reins on how your book is being printed, you’ve probably already come to face-to-face with the many available options. We’ve talked before on the Big Bad Book Blog about print-on-demand versus traditional printing, but we thought it might also be helpful to discuss binding style. Paperback, hardcover, mass market—everyone has seen these formats in bookstores, but how do you decide which is right for your book?

Let’s start by clarifying a few terms:

Paperback (also called soft cover or perfect-bound) books usually have a cover made from paperboard or a very thick stock, and the pages are attached to the binding with glue. When we talk about paperback books, we typically mean trade paperbacks, which are the typical 6 x 9 or 5.5 x 8.5–sized books you see in bookstores. Mass-market is a type of paperback you often see used for romance novels or thrillers. Mass-market books are usually smaller in trim size and fatter with a thinner, lower-quality stock and cover.

Hardcover (also called casebound or hardbound) books have covers that are sturdier, usually made from thick cardboard wrapped in cloth. Here the pages can be glued or sewn into the spine, making the spine more flexible so that the book can lay flat when opened. The book title and author's name are often stamped onto the cloth binding, and hardcover books typically come with printed dust jacket with artwork.

So if you’re making arrangements to have your book printed, how do you decide which format is best for your book? Here are the three main determiners.

Cost to Consumer

The retail price a consumer will pay for a book is largely dictated by the format, and retail buyers have strict guidelines about how a book can be priced. A paperback book is often significantly cheaper than a hardcover book (for more on price, see this post). Because hardcover is more expensive to the consumer, you could encounter readers who just don’t want to pay $21.95 for a book they could otherwise get in paperback for at $16.95. This bears repeating—if you print in hardcover and subsequently price your book higher, you risk losing sales because of the high price point. This consumer choice in price is also important considering the rise in ebook sales, which cannibalized hardcover sales in the last quarter of 2010, according to Bowker. That said, there are many reasons a consumer might prefer a hardcover book, including durability, style, and longevity.

Genre

Genre is one of the biggest indicators for format. Books that can be found in hardcover are frequently in the genres of business, coffee table/art, first-edition fiction, or collector’s editions of classics. Traditionally, fiction comes out first in hardcover and later in paperback. This is changing due to the economic climate, and to stay competitive many fiction titles, especially from newer authors, are coming out in paperback to entice readers with a lower price point. Penguin recently released a beautiful set of hardcover editions for people looking for that classic aesthetic that only hardcover brings. Topics with rapidly changing information, like health, technology, science, and politics, are usually released in paperback (or ebook) formats, so that new editions can be released and consumed more quickly. Of course, these are broad generalizations meant to provide a little guidance, and doing research on comparable titles can help inform your decision on the proper binding for your book.

Printing Cost

Printing hardcover is more expensive than printing paperback, so if you’re on a tight budget, you might get more books for your buck by printing paperback. The margins for hardcover books are usually better than for paperbacks because the cost to consumers is significantly higher than the cost difference in printing—it only costs a little more to print hardcover than paperback and you can charge a lot more in retail. If you do have a strong platform or fan base, or if you have direct sales opportunities, hardcover may be a good way to go. Your clients and fans may be more likely to buy your book even at the higher price point that hardcover commands since they are already interested in your content.

Other Considerations...

One other point to consider is the sale of paperback rights. If your goal is to be picked up by a traditional publisher, you may want to release first in hardcover (again, depending on the genre). If your hardcover sales catch a traditional publisher’s eye, they may inquire about the rights to your paperback version. It doesn’t really work the other way around, though, so if this is important to you, hardcover may be a good choice.

There is no magic formula for deciding what format to print your book in, and there are a lot of factors to consider. The first step is establishing what your price point will be for any format you are considering. Making sure you have an appropriate price point is imperative for accurately running the numbers on your margins. Once you have looked at printing cost versus retail cost, taking a close look at your genre and comparable titles is a good next step to making a decision on format.

Have Questions? Thoughts? Let us know!

When you’re deciding how to print your book, you have two main options: print-on-demand or printing on an offset press. What do those two options entail exactly? Print-on-demand, or POD, allows you to digitally print a single book at a time, often using a large laser printer. Offset, or “traditional,” printing involves a huge press that transfers the image from an inked plate to a rubber blanket and then to the paper, and usually necessitates a print run of at least 1,000 units to make economic sense. So which is right for your book? It depends on several factors you’ll want to weigh before making a decision.

You might consider POD if…

You’re planning a limited release and just want your book available online or for order.

If you’re not planning on national marketing or distribution, POD is an easy way for interested parties to find your book and order a copy online. This may be the case if you just want the book available for friends and family.

You don’t want to pay for a large print run upfront.

Offset printing requires a comparatively higher investment since you’re essentially buying 1,000 books (or more). If you’re not in a position to pay for a run of that size or don’t want the risk of not selling all the units you print, POD or a smaller digital print run may be a better fit. With POD, you print just the quantity you need, when you need it.

You have content that needs to be frequently updated.

Books on current events or anything technology related will likely require frequently updated content. With print-on-demand you won’t have old stock lying around once you’re ready to release an updated edition, and it’s easy to add or change content.

You might consider offset printing if…

You’re planning a national release and will be widely distributing and marketing your book.

If you already have a strong platform (link to platform article), have direct sales opportunities lined up, or are planning a big publicity push, an offset run might be a better choice because of the lower price per unit and the higher-quality printing required for retail.

You are willing and able to invest in print run of at least 1,000 books.

As mentioned earlier, there is a larger upfront cost when you print offset, since you’re potentially paying for the printing of several thousand books instead of a few dozen. That said, the more books you print at once, the lower the price per unit—1,000 books is typically thought of as the minimum number of books you’d need to print to reap the benefits of an offset run.

You want or need higher-quality printing or flexibility with printing specifications and technology.

POD printing is restrictive when it comes to your choices in trim size, paper weight, color inks, and printing technologies like embossing, debossing, cut-outs, or foil. Offset presses offer the widest variety and highest-quality printing choices if you are planning on a uniquely sized book or a book with color images or photos.

A few additional notes…

• Shipping and warehousing is something else to consider—with offset printing you’ll need a place to store your books.
• Technology in digital printing has advanced rapidly and there are more choices now than there were just a year or two ago. Options in digital printing will probably continue to increase.
• While print-on-demand is a type of digital printing, it’s important to mention “digital printing” as a separate entity all its own. Digital printing is an option for small print runs (around 25–500 copies) and has fewer printing restrictions than POD. Like POD, you will still typically encounter a higher price per unit than offset, but unlike POD, you will have to arrange for shipping and warehousing.
• POD and digital printing have a quicker turnaround time, usually about 2 weeks, whereas offset printing usually requires 4 to 5 weeks for paperback and 6 to 8 weeks for hardcover.

These are, of course, not necessarily the only points to consider, but they are the most commonly debated issues. As with almost any part of the publishing process, when considering your printing options, one of the most important things you can do is to clarify what your goals are and what resources you’re putting towards your book to help you determine the best option. For more information on printing options, take a look at this FAQ from BookMobile.

Have questions? Leave us a comment on this article and we’ll be happy to answer them.

Stop the presses! Before you print your book, make sure you’re not committing a major packaging faux pas that will diminish retail buyers’ interest. We’ve all heard the statistic: 2,000 books are published every day. That means the competition for shelf space is fierce, so as an author, you have to make sure the physical presentation of your book is flawless or you don’t stand much of a chance.

We receive so many submissions that, despite having great content, have one part of the packaging off, which makes it hard for us, or any distributor, to effectively sell the title. Interior layout is one facet of packaging that can be easily overlooked but remains essential to the professional presentation and readability of a book. I spoke with managing designer Sheila Parr, who’s won numerous awards for her book designs, about common layout errors, and she offered some simple advice to anyone looking to produce a book on their own.

Font and Typography

For fiction and general nonfiction, serif fonts are easier to read on the printed page than sans serif fonts. Size depends on font, but in general text should be somewhere between 10 and 12 points. Stay away from bold type, underlined type, all-caps type, and exclamation points to emphasize a point—this can come across as unprofessional.

SP: When picking a serif font, don’t use Times New Roman. Times has become a sort of default font,and it can have an unfinished look about it when printed. For a more polished, professional look, try something like Caslon or Garamond. To emphasize a point, italics can be a better solution than bold or underlined text.

Margins

In general, margins are about .75 inches on the bottom and sides, and about 1 inch at the top of the page, though the .75-inch margin can be as small as .5 or as large as 1 inch. For longer books, the margin along the spine, known as the gutter, may be larger. Leading, the space between lines of text, should be several points larger than the text itself.

SP: Margins and leading are usually determined by factors like genre and page count. For example, a dense business book may have a looser layout with wide margins and leading to help the reader better absorb the material, while a novel typically has a tighter layout that keeps the reader moving and engaged.

Words per Page

Too much or to little text per page makes a book difficult to read. Like margins, the number of words per page varies based on genre and page count, but there are usually about 35 lines of text.

SP: In general there should be about 350 to 440 words per composed page. Nonfiction and books with illustrations and graphs are on the lower end of that scale, and novels are on the higher end.

Chapter Headings and Running Heads

Chapter headings and page breaks should match the book’s genre and style and should be appropriate for the target audience. A business book, for example, should have fairly simple chapter headings as opposed to the headings of a fantasy novel, which may have more elaborate fonts or design. When there are other headings within the chapter, create a hierarchy by using varying sizes.

Running heads are the text at the top of every numbered page of a book. They often consist of a combination of the author’s name, the chapter title, or the book title. The important issue here is to be consistent—if you decide to use author name on the left and title on the right, stick with it throughout.

Graphs and Illustrations

If you are using graphs or illustrations, make sure they are high resolution and easy to understand. Try to keep visually presented information simple and relevant to the text around it.

SP: There are whole college courses based on information design—illustrating complex information in a way that is easily understood. My advice: hire an experienced professional to design your charts, graphs, and illustrations.

Front Matter

All of the information that comes before the first chapter of your book (e.g., your foreword, preface, or introduction) is called front matter. There are varying styles of organization depending on the genre or publisher. This content is frequently paginated with lower-case Roman numerals, while the pages that begin your first chapter—the content of your book—are where the Arabic numerals begin, though introductions frequently get page 1, not Roman numerals.

Thanks to Sheila Parr and our production and design teams for all of the great information.