bookpublishing

Endpapers are a big topic today. If you don’t know what endpapers are, they’re exactly what they sound like–usually a thicker stock paper that appears usually in hardcover books at the front and back. Often they’re very simple, a solid color or pattern. Sometimes, though, designers get really creative to make them match the cover design or interior design.

Today I was reviewing a football book designed by a packager that has a very simple but gorgeous cover design and a more intricate interior design. Then I saw the endpapers and they were an ugly beige-taupe color with no design at all. After speaking with our publisher here about his lackluster response to the endpapers, I requested a more interesting look–even if it only made them look more textured and less bland.

I don’t feel that endpapers are a big deal. I think plain is fine. But when you have the time and the means, which we do in this case, to make a statement, why not? Obviously, you don’t want to overdo it and make the endpapers look more interesting than the rest of the book! But you do want a consistent design that draws the reader in on every page you possibly can.

Alison Morris has a children’s booksellers blog (called Shelftalker) on the Publishers Weekly site and she discussed endpapers today too. Of course, with children’s books, the endpaper design makes a much bigger statement and can have a much bigger effect. It may even be more worth the time and effort to design them as they are more likely to be noticed by a child who is actively taking in all the information than a typical adult reader of a football book who is much more eager to get to the real meat of the book. She includes some examples of nice-looking endpapers. Now, I defer to her taste when it comes to endpapers in children’s books, because I certainly can’t imagine a book I publish that I’d want endpapers like the ones she shows off. However, she does include a link to another site that has some truly stunning images. Here are a few of my favorites:

Garth Williams - Fairies by David G. Klein

The Wonderland of Knowledge by Nancy Stahl

Misty of Chincoteague by Heidi Shmidt

House of Pomegranates by Heidi Shmidt

Susan’s Neighbors by Lou Brooks

Last one… clearly NOT for a children’s book:

Dutch Treat Club 1940 by Stephen Kroninger

There are many more to drool over here.

I’m telling you: a very sizable chunk of the work I do on a book is on the front matter (everything that occurs before the first page of the first chapter). Most of my work today dealt with the front matter on one book. I feel like I spend a whole lot more attention on the front matter than even a very curious reader would when reading the book. Consider a few crucial things to work out in the front matter when editing a book:

-Deciding if it is going to have a half title page and a blank to begin the book (sometimes for aesthetic reasons, other times to make form).
-Making sure the title page has the correct title, subtitle, author(s) name(s), illustrator/photographer(s) name(s), name of other writers (writer of the foreword, for instance), the correct imprint, logo, location.
-All the junk on the copyright page really stresses people out. Who even reads the copyright page? Oh yeah, lawyers do. You need the correct copyright year and owner, all rights reserved, photo credits, text copyright credits, text design credits, layout credits, editing credits, map credits, trademarks, logos, and imprint information. Then there’s the ISBN and Library of Congress Data, location of printing, and printing line. And probably a dozen other doodads.
-The TOC (table of contents): Where does it start? How many pages is it?
-Dedication. Acknowledgments. Preface. Foreword. Introduction. Sometimes a mix of those.
-Another title page? or part opener? What about photos?

Of course it’s also important that the front matter is paged with roman numerals. That makes it easy to change, move, delete, and reorder material in the front matter without causing reflow in the text. (”Reflow” means moving main body text to a new page or changing page numbers in the main text.)

It all has to be planned so it’s the right number of pages and that everything falls on the page it should. Then the book is designed and you find out you’re six pages over form. So you change the front matter all around again. What a waste of time!

Here’s a cool new application for anyone who likes to use their cell phone in innovative ways: the Barcode Scanner application, a new searching tool available for download on Android-powered phones. When you open up the application on your phone, the screen shows your camera’s view. When you line up the camera in front of a book barcode, it will automatically zoom, focus and scan the ISBN without clicking the shutter. This opens the book in Google Book Search if it’s in the Google directory and allows you to search the book.

This can be a really useful too, especially for books that don’t include indexes (or with very basic indexes). Let’s say you’re trying to decide between two cookbooks. Your in-laws are very particular and will only eat dinner at your home if you cook lamb. Which cookbook will give you more recipes that include lamb? If you use this application and search for the term lamb, it will tell you which book includes more instances of the word. Voila! That decision just became easy. Although, with any luck, the book will have a useful index and the whole scanning the barcode process is just something you can do to impress your friends.

I’m really interested in the way book publishing is discussed on Fox’s hit show “Bones”, in which the main character, Temperance Brennan, is a forensic anthropologist and bestselling author. In last night’s episode, the murder victim was also a bestselling author, but the publisher decided to replace the author’s photo and bio with a more attractive stand-in. The “imposter” turned out to be not a bad writer either and ended up replacing the original author while maintaining the pseudonym (also the real name of the original author). It made me curious about how often this is really done in publishing–to the best of my knowledge, my company has never done something like that and it seems fairly ludicrous to think it would. But obviously some publishers do. How much do you think the author’s attractiveness actually affects the reader? Typically I don’t even know what an author looks like until I finish the book and catch a glimpse of their photo and bio on the last page. In my opinion, that’s pretty much ideal.

What was also interesting on Bones was their interview with the character who played the murder victim’s book publisher. He was a total jerk! And totally not what I expected as a character to fill that role. It bothered me a bit because he came off as a self-important, profit-seeking loser who didn’t care at all about his authors. But Booth later insulted him and made it clear to Brennan that this guy wasn’t a good example of the publishing industry and that it shouldn’t have an effect on how she felt about her own writing. The show has had other characters to play publishing professionals who I’ve enjoyed… this one, not so much. But at least they acknowledged that he stood out in the industry… as a dirtbag.

Just gotta keep reminding myself the show is fictional. Right.

Today is definitely a good industry day with companies making leaps and bounds in new developments. What effect will they have on the consumer and our reading habits? Guess you’ll have to stay tuned to find out… Here are the news and rumors in the book publishing industry this week.

In response to Amazon’s popular “Search Inside” feature, which allows browsers to read a sample of pages (often the front matter and first chapter) of a book, Google has unleashed a new feature to its Book Search program, a widget-like tool called Google Previews. Looks like a pretty cool tool if you ask me, although the ability to search inside a book digitally is nothing new. But check out the fun widget anyway–I’ve used it here with Sue Monk Kidd’s book, The Secret Life of Bees, because I’m told there’s a movie coming out based on the book:


Wow, I just tried it and it blew my mind. I love widgets!

Brisingr, Christopher Paolini’s new children’s book that had a whopping 2.5 million copy print run, did quite well on its first day, selling 550,000 copies. To celebrate, I was going to post a preview of the book, but it’s not available. Actually, there are a lot of books that aren’t available for preview. I’ll keep an eye on that. But anyway, way to go Random House.

And a new digital reader is emerging in the world of Kindles and Readers. Publisher’s Weekly announces:

iRex Technologies, the Dutch firm that developed the iLiad wireless digital reading device, announced the introduction of the Digital Reader Series, a new line of three professional level digital reading devices with bigger screens, touch screen functionality, super-thin design and, for the top model, enhanced Wi-Fi capabilities. Earlier this year iRex introduced the iLiad Book Edition, a lower-priced and simplified version of its standard iLiad Reader that does not offer wireless connectivity.

Sounds pretty fancy, right? Well unfortunately, so is the price tag. The devices range from $650 to $800 and considering that not all of them have Wi-Fi, they seem kind of pointless compared to the Kindle… but for those professionals with money to throw around, they may turn out to be must-haves.