Hmmm

[james_davis_nicoll]

These two Tor trade paperbacks are not the same size.

Comments

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Same has been true of Ace in the past.

[whl.livejournal.com]

Only mass market paperbacks are generally uniform in height and depth. (I know; I built a lot of my own bookshelves.) And lately, a new mutant strain of paperback is showing up which is the same depth but TALLER, taking up the space I left at the tops to pull the book out...

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

I understand that the taller MMPB format was specifically designed in the face of the aging demographic: these books were thought to be easier to read by older readers. Not sure why really, but I've noticed that they are (a) a bit easier to hold open, and (b) the font size is nearly always larger and the line-length shorter. This probably makes them more wasteful, as well, because I suspect they use more paper overall, per unit.

[jazzfish]

Huh. That makes a lot more sense than the explanation I was given (as a bookseller a decade ago, when they started turning up): they're a more expensive form factor intended for airport bookstores, in an attempt to extort more money from people trapped in airports with nothing to read.

added: Also, 'more wasteful than standard MMPB' is a high bar, but yeah, these may have cleared it.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I find them much harder to read, physically; they're not wide enough to hold like a hardback but the centre of balance is enough higher that they forever topple out of my hands.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

I find I tend to naturally hold them farther up each side than the smaller MMPBs: I do not read them with one hand, but then I don't ever tend to read books with one hand, unless I'm resting it on my lap or something.

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

those are called the Prestige pb, and they are an abomination .. hard to hold and awkward, if I had a laser cutter, I could fix the size problem with the bookcases plus they would fit in my purse or roomy jacket pocked.

A good paperback should fit in the back pocket of your dungarees as the saying goes.

see if a local printshop has a hydraulic guillotine cutter

[(Anonymous)]

those can cut thru a ream of paper @ once incl stacks of gluebound notepads so a ppbk shld be no problem - if theyre willng to do it , they may do a batch for $5 or so , just tell them you need 1/8" off the top or whatever

Re: see if a local printshop has a hydraulic guillotine cutter

[awesomeaud.livejournal.com]

I happen to have two such guillotines, one of which is for sale...

http://www.papertrail.ca/blog/2013/05/08/challenge-26-power-guillotine-for-sale/

This thing will go through multiple telephone books without even noticing!

Re: see if a local printshop has a hydraulic guillotine cutter

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

there isnt enough room in my garage for it.. sigh.. but tempting.

Re: see if a local printshop has a hydraulic guillotine cutter

[awesomeaud.livejournal.com]

It's on wheels, so it can be tucked into a corner until needed.

:)

Re: see if a local printshop has a hydraulic guillotine cutter

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

its a Chinese puzzle box out there, to get to anything you have to move a lot of other things. There are literally no corners to put anything else in.

[brooksmoses]

A laser cutter would not work well with a paperback book. At best you'd get a charred burned edge (as if you cut it and then held a hot iron against the cut surface until it blackened and smoked), and at worst it would catch on fire.

[dbdatvic.livejournal.com]

I know I'm late, but I have those filed in my mental system as "very small trade paperback", and I can't buy a book if it comes out in that size. Still waiting for actual MMPB-size versions of the last couple of Jim Butcher's Alera series, for example. Why? Because they do NOT stack with or fit with the real-size MMPBs, at all at all ... and I also can't stack them with the trade paperbacks, because they're small enough that the stacks fall over at where that book is.

So yes, as someone notes below, they're an abomination, AND don't contain anything more, content-wise, than regular MMPBs, AND cost a couple dollars more on average. Clearly designed by someone's marketing department without consulting actual buyers of more than one or two books a year...

--Dave

[jazzfish]

Yeah, Tor seems to have two different sizes of trade paperbacks. (And of hardbacks.) It's mildly annoying, upgraded to 'really annoying' when they change size in the middle of a series. Eg, the collected Soldier of the Mist / Soldier of Arete is the shorter size, but Soldier of Sidon is the taller size.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

These are from unrelated series, at least.

[dbdatvic.livejournal.com]

You haven't noticed yet that NO two trade paperbacks are the same size, ever? The exceptions are ones in the same series from the same author and publisher, and even then it's not guaranteed. There's no such thing as a standard TPB size, the way there is (or was) for MMPBs. Luckily, MOST of them have large enough dimensions that a stack of them isn't notably unstable.

--Dave