you don't have to be an expert in production or work in production
in publishing to understand different book specifications you've probably come across
a lot more than you actually realize if you own at least one book
so today i'm just gonna be running through them because i encounter a lot of these in my role when
i work in production in publishing so the first thing i would say is the trim page size so that's
called the tps for short this is essentially just the length times the width of the book is how big
your book is but we do this in measurements so for example in the uk we tend to use millimeters and
in the us we tend to use inches for example our two three four by one five six millimeters and
then you have a page extent which is kind of key to a book because obviously the more pages there
are in a book the bigger and the thicker the book is going to be the extent i've mentioned
in one of my other videos as well on parts of the book is the total number of pages that a book has
so not the little numbers that you see at the bottom that you think is like the proper page
number an extent includes all of the front matter all of the back matter so if it's got contents
acknowledgements anything like that it's the exact number of pages from start to finish and then like
linking onto that another thing that is cast as a book specification is the spine width of a book
so if you can imagine a book that has more pages is obviously going to be thicker and if you look
at the spine on the side of it therefore it's going to be wider and so in production we deal a
lot with that we've changed in the specs different printers might use different paper and therefore
they'll be thicker and then a bigger spine width then probably the most obvious book specification
that you've come across is the format sometimes that's called different things but i say format
and that's essentially if your book is hardback or paperback you probably already know the
difference between them but i'm going to run through some examples of books that i've got
and then show you as we go along so specifically for hardback books you could have a cloth jacket
and i'm going to show you an example of that now so this book i was kindly gifted by a head of zeus
which bloomberg have actually just acquired now which is insane this is dublin's girl this has
a cloth jacket it's a hardback so obviously you can't see this in person but it is hard
and then inside it's got a jacket i don't know if that's going to be clear enough it's basically an
extra piece of paper that comes out like that and it sort of hugs the book itself to show you
another example stacy solomon's happily imperfect this has got a cloth jacket as well we open it
up you can see it's got these flaps here and then you could actually just completely take the cloth
jacket off there you go it's external that's just a bit of plastic a bit of paper basically
called the cloth jacket and then you're left with the actual book i don't know about you but
sometimes i like take them off and i like to see what the actual book looks like underneath so this
one for example is just this kind of like green teal color and then it's got the title along there
humankind which is published by bloomsbury this also has a cloth jacket again same idea that's
what cloth jacket is i'm going to show a hardback book but this does this next book specification
doesn't have to be hardback it can be paid back as well the next one we're talking about is plate
sections or plates and sometimes something they call like inserts tippins i think they are cool
sometimes as well essentially it's photos it's images that are separate to the rest of the book
so easiest way to explain this is to show an example i was kind of gifted this book as well
which is called the longest farewell and it's by serene or spring syren books this is hardback it
doesn't have a cloth jacket but i got up close now paper used this book is kind of like a standard
creamy color but then if you go to the middle you have fake sections so it's just a few pages
of colored pictures this is actually on different paper so the rest of the book is kind of like this
rough texture if you like whereas the photos are printed on this glossier paper and what happens
with plate sections is they are printed separately to the book and then inserted afterwards they're
typically on higher quality paper because you're dealing with images and you're dealing with colors
you wanted it to be higher quality the reason why you might think you know why don't we just
put the whole book in that kind of glossy paper well that's obviously more expensive
if you can just put all the images together and you might put them in the middle of the book at
the back of the book in a couple of places whatever and i would say usually what i've
come across it's usually just been dead in the middle but that's what plate sections are this is
the only example i've actually got owning a book with plate sections in it but i do deal with it
at work quite a lot as well so that's what plate sections are now you saw with our cover jackets
we had those little flaps in the beginning of the book i just wanted to show an idea of like a paper
flat so this book is super cute it's called the little book of gratitude and it is a paper book
paper back so it's like bendy it's not hard at all it's soft and then inside you have flaps
different to the cloth jacket that's extended you can take it off these are glued in can show
that clearly that is glued in there's no way those flaps are coming off they just put at the
beginning and at the end of a book to tell you maybe more about the book and at the back more
about the author so that's what flaps are moving on we have ribbon you might know this as bookmarks
or whatever but we have this book called calm by the company called calm and if you notice on the
side here we have this ribbon it's attached to the book it's all in the spine there if that's going
to load sort of in the spine there it's attached that is just to mark your page as far as i'm aware
that is so you can get the ribbon you can put it on the page that you're on close the book and that
ribbon will stay there sticking out at the bottom so you can quickly open up what page you were
on so that is what a ribbon is next up we have sprayed edges which is arguably my favorite type
of book specification so this is a proof that i've got of bloomsbury raven books greenwich park so
it looks like this this is the spine this is the back and then this is the paper so sprayed edges
the edges are literally sprayed that's not already clear the paper there is green the paper inside
is not green the paper inside is normal and then the edges are sprayed so that's what you
have there and i just think it looks so pretty and i've seen different types of it as well it
doesn't just have to be one color like that i've seen different designs and stuff but obviously
all these things cost more money but yes that's what sprayed edges are going back to our hardbacks
i'm coming back to this book that's dublin's girl and i've just taken off the cloth jacket which
we discussed earlier and now we are left with the plain hardback so this is a creamy colored
hardback and then on the side you have the title in blue with the author's name there
now if i turn this in different directions you should be able to see the light shining on all
of the blue what that's called is foiling so it's literally a foil that the printers use to create
that effect there for a camera it's quite tricky but they will shine in different lights there
surprisingly there are actually a lot of books that have this and again it can be on paperback
as well it's not strictly back um hardback this is just the examples that i have it's just a
really neat detail and it will shine in different lights as well i just showed the stacy solomon one
as well this is what it looks like without the cloth jacket so it's just another type of book
specification just to make the book a little bit different a little bit more interesting next up
we have what's called spot uv and i think this is really effective when it's used in the right
way for example i have this proof from bloomsbury called animal it's lisa today's first debut novel
and if i shine this in different lights you should be able to see that that eye has a certain texture
to it if you like if i do a close-up there you should be able to see that when i twist it
only the eye sort of has that light going across it that's called is spot uv and you can feel it as
well so the book here is quite soft then if you go over to the eye it's like that glossier kind
of texture it's almost like photo paper so that's what spot uv is it can just be put in different
places it might be on the name of the book it might be on pictures like that i've got another
example here so the combo by the company calm that circle is in spot uv because you should be able to
see that that's having a little bit of light to it when i move it at different angles next up in our
book specifications we have head and tail bands this is something that's on the top and the bottom
of the book i've got this book here women don't owe you pretty by florence given which i'm yet to
read but i've heard many good things about it if we get close you should be able to see that when i
look down sort of like an eagle view here connecting the pages there is a yellow color and
it's also on the bottom there pages are probably held together by glue but what those heading
tower bands are just like extra bit of material basically to give it a different color i've got
another example here on the book humankind and because the theme for this book if you like is
orange you've got the orange umbrella the title and orange the spine in orange if you look there
the head and tail bands are also orange there again that is on the top and the bottom hence
the name head and tail back again with this book women don't are you pretty we're talking about
end papers and they are papers at the end of the book literally self-explanatory so if we open it
up the very first thing that you see is actually this animal print there and then you get into the
bulk of the book the back as well the same thing there and those papers are pasted down onto that
hardback board there and then there's the extra one there because obviously it's a folded sheet of
paper there there and then you have your your main text there to show another example we have stacy
solomon again and in her book her end papers have got photos on them so it's photos of her there so
you see it's literally just that first page there if you have a look at some of your books some of
them probably have it potentially just a plain color we go back to this little book of gratitude
this has got end papers if you open it up you've got these blue papers so the rest of the book is
in white paper and then the last two pages here are in blue they don't have to be fancy like that
animal print or photos or anything it can just be a different color okay next we're talking about
debossing and embossing what that is is imagine parts of the book usually the text that is lower
than the main cover or higher than the main cover i'm not smart enough to think of a better way to
explain it than that but if i show you an example the easiest way to do this is grab a book and just
feel the actual cover this one women don't know you pretty or if you have this book as well the
rest of the book is one flat surface and then if you fill over the actual title those red letters
there they're actually slightly lower than the rest of the book if that makes sense so they're
dipped in it's ever so slightly sometimes you won't even notice it you might have to feel it a
couple times to understand what i mean but that's what debossing is so you're almost imagine you're
getting those letters and you're pushing them down so they're kind of debossed then the opposite to
that of course is embossing so it's where the selected text or images will be higher than the
rest of the cover it can happen on the spine as well so on the raw book of stacey solomons we've
talked about the gold foiling that we've got there but if i run my fingers along there i can feel
that stacy's name is slightly higher than the rest of the book sometimes you might do that for just
to make it look pretty sometimes you might do it if the author's name is particularly big and
you want it to stand out a bit more again some of these things are not that obvious you might
have to look at a couple of examples of books that you've got and then once you notice it you won't
be able to stop then i want to talk briefly about paper types as well because this is definitely a
specification that we use in production a lot when we're talking about paper the best example i can
provide is back to this book again the longest farewell i talked about how the rest of the
book is on this whiter more grittier paper and the plate sections which are the images in the middle
that's on a glossier kind of paper that's smoother to touch that glossier paper is typically more
expensive because you're using colored ink on it books usually are just on that cream
or white colored paper so we usually measure paper in grams per square meter just to know
as well that paper might be fsc approved which i'm now not going to remember what that stands for it
basically means that the paper that they're using for that book is sustainably sourced so offset is
typically thinner whereas book wove is typically thicker and then matte art which is probably used
for that but in the longest farewell is used for like plate sections lots of colors lots of imagery
moving on to the binding of a book so when you want to put all the pages together and make it
a final product as one unit you have different types of binding you can have silent you can
have unsewn you can have notched so you can also have a wire binding which self-explanatory it uses
wire and does those kind of c curve shapes there i would say typically used for notebooks rather than
reading books because then you can open it out a lot easier you have perfect bind which is used for
a lot of reading books i would say and it's where all the pages are glued together and then you have
saddle stitch which is basically staples so this little sample i was given the face yoga journal
by watkins publishing it's very thin because it is a sample if i show that up close it's got staples
holding all the pages together so you'll typically use staples for a book that isn't very big maybe
and if you remember using those books at school as well they had staples down the side that's
what saddle stitch binding is then moving back to the actual pages so inside obviously there will be
images or there'll be text on a book so we have to think about the ink typically you just have
two options but that is not limited so you have mono which is black and white which is a lot of
your novels where it's just white paper black text all throughout or one times one because
we're using one color from the printer or you'll have full color or four times four and that's
books like this like calm where you have color all the way throughout obviously that's going
to be much more expensive because you're using more ink than just black and white finally i want
to talk about the different laminations when you finally got your book it's all signed together and
then you're thinking about the top cover again if you look at this notebook here you can see
it's glossy it means the light shining on it a lot it's kind of that softer touch then if we go
back to women don't know you pretty that's matte so if i shine that in the light shouldn't really
reflect any light if i hold them up for comparison to hold these books up for comparison moving them
at the same time you can see that pink notebook is reflecting a lot more light so that's the
difference between gloss and matte lamination so there are a lot of different book specifications
and this isn't even an exhaustive list so what affects the decision to use some of these the most
obvious one and the one that obviously we care about a lot as publishers is the cost everything
additional every specification every extra is going to cost money whether it's a ribbon whether
it's head and tail bands it's extra resources it's extra time that maybe a machine or a person has to
put through that another factor is availability if you want to print on a specific paper but that
printer doesn't have it then you're not going to print on that paper same with different printers
might not print full color so you might have to go for printer that does that or you might
have to consider going mono then the author might have a say in what their preference is
and then finally but not exclusively you have what the actual product is used for if it's a cookbook
for example you need it on that glossier paper you need to print it full color so you can see what
the end product looks like and yeah on that kind of glossier paper in case you get any spillages
i hope you found that useful do let me know in the comments down below if you did find it useful i'd
love it if you were to go to your bookshelf now see what books you've got comment down below all
the different specifications that you've learned that they have did you notice it before is it
only now that you're realizing it let me know thanks for watching and see you in my next one