Writer Sanctum
Writer's Haven => Quill and Feather Pub [Public] => Topic started by: Hopscotch on December 03, 2018, 01:56:04 AM
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Am I nuts to consider publishing a paperback at 8.5" x 11" size? I want to republish in one package a series of 7 pulp novels with some fresh short stories using the same characters, about 1K pages. Rather than do a paperback box set, I'm inclined toward a single big volume with two columns per page for style and ease of reading. Will double columns craze KDP POD? Cost of shipping prohibitive? :confused:
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Why would anyone want to read it in that format? I think that's the key question.
Another would be why push them all together in print? Once you get to about 200k words, you've already got a doorstopper and the typical spine glue isn't going to hold onto something even bigger. This sounds like something you might want to talk to a small press about, the kind that does interesting special editions in the SFF world. You might need to do it in a high quality hardcover format to actually keep that many pages together--with a matching high dollar price.
For that matter, why do they all have to be in one volume?
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A large trim size is my least favorite format, esp. with columns. I like my paperbacks small to fit in my hand comfortably.
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I'm not necessarily opposed to large trim sizes, but I've never seen anything approach 8.5 X 11 that wasn't hardcover. Usually, a big that big is a reference work of some kind. I've seen a few "collected works volumes" in hardcover with large trim sizes, but pretty much all the other really huge ones are reference books.
It's true that a large trim size would reduce the number of pages, but it's so different from what people would expect that I'd be wary of it.
Do you usually make a lot of sales in paperback? If not, I'm not sure I see the point of a huge paperback series volume. Only if you were a big seller in paperbacks would it make sense, and even then I'd split it into smaller volumes as others have suggested.
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The only time I've seen a paperback that large it was large print for the visually impaired.
I second rethinking the two column print
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I did a bit of market research into a4 two column magazine format for shorter works a while ago. (I did a couple of short print runs myself to provide to people for the purpose.) The responses were generally surprise, and those who got past that liked it, but only as a small, on the bus kind of read sold for just two or three dollars. The feedback on that use was good enough I may use it one day, but only for something up to perhaps 10k words at most. Any bigger and it becomes far too cumbersome to hold a reader. Glue a bunch of tabloid magazines together and try to handle it, you’ll see what I mean.
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The only time we've ever done that trim size was for some of our illustrated children's books. Here's one of them. If you look inside, you'll see why we did it that way. It's also a nice size for kids.
https://www.amazon.com/Das-Story-Time-Stevie-Halloween/dp/1479368946/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1543794145&sr=1-5
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Thank you all very much for taking the trouble to give me your advice. I'll drop the idea. :tup3b