After half term, children's illustrator Katie will help us draw pictures for our book. However, before we can start illustrating, we need to decide on the height and width of our paperback.
Choosing the size and shape of our book is a very complicated but important decision.
A paperback book has three dimensions: height, width and thickness. The height and width refers to the page size and the thickness depends on the number of pages. We can't control the thickness exactly until we know how long our story is going to be. However, the bigger the pages, the smaller the thickness, because big pages have more words on them than small pages.
I know you usually work with centimeters and millimeters at school, but the people printing our book will be in America, where they work in inches. So, I've put the measurements in inches and millimeters.
To give you an idea of size, The Troll Trap is 5 inches wide by 8 inches tall (127 x 203 mm) . The First Trollogy is 6 by 9 inches (152 x 229 mm)
Perhaps you could try picking some of your favourite books from your school library and measuring them?
These are the options our printers will let us have:
Standard - 5” x 8” (127 x 203 mm)
Quite big - 6” x 9” (152 x 229 mm)
Bigger again - 7” x 10” (178 x 254 mm)
Massive - 8” x 10” (203 x 254 mm)
What looks best?
Big books look impressive from the outside.They have big covers, which help them stand out on a shelf. A big cover would allow us to squeeze a lot of information onto the front and back.
However, bigger pages mean more words per page. Have you ever turned a page and seen 1,000 words starting back? It's off-putting and it's very easy to lose your place.
Lots to think about, isn't there? This is just the sort of tough decision that authors and publishers have to make every day. Thank you for your help.
A note about colour ...
Our book will be printed in black and white with a colour cover. This is because colour books are very expensive to print. Printing 300 colour pages would make each book cost £26!
Choosing the size and shape of our book is a very complicated but important decision.
I know you usually work with centimeters and millimeters at school, but the people printing our book will be in America, where they work in inches. So, I've put the measurements in inches and millimeters.
To give you an idea of size, The Troll Trap is 5 inches wide by 8 inches tall (127 x 203 mm) . The First Trollogy is 6 by 9 inches (152 x 229 mm)
Perhaps you could try picking some of your favourite books from your school library and measuring them?
These are the options our printers will let us have:
Standard - 5” x 8” (127 x 203 mm)
Quite big - 6” x 9” (152 x 229 mm)
Bigger again - 7” x 10” (178 x 254 mm)
Massive - 8” x 10” (203 x 254 mm)
Things to Consider When Choosing a Shape
What feels best?
Rather a lot's going to happen in our book. We already have over a dozen characters, each with their own backstory. I can tell you now that our story will take up at least 150 standard sized pages, probably more. This means it's a book that will take many long reading sessions to finish so needs to be comfortable to hold.
What do similar books look like?
Look at the books in your school library that have over 150 pages. What size are they? Do books for different age groups come in different sizes?
Big books look impressive from the outside.They have big covers, which help them stand out on a shelf. A big cover would allow us to squeeze a lot of information onto the front and back.
However, bigger pages mean more words per page. Have you ever turned a page and seen 1,000 words starting back? It's off-putting and it's very easy to lose your place.
What size pictures do we want?
Larger pages allow bigger pictures, which means the pictures can be more detailed. However, our monster book will be published as an eBook as well as a paperback. eReaders are about six inches (150 mm) tall, so our pictures will have to be simple enough for a six inch screen, no matter how big our paperback pages are.
How expensive do we want our book to be?
Thinner books are cheaper to print than thick ones. However, even a 300 page book would probably cost less than £6 to print and have posted to your school, so the books will be affordable no matter which size you choose. They'll just be slightly more of a bargain if they're thin.
Lots to think about, isn't there? This is just the sort of tough decision that authors and publishers have to make every day. Thank you for your help.
A note about colour ...
Our book will be printed in black and white with a colour cover. This is because colour books are very expensive to print. Printing 300 colour pages would make each book cost £26!
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