Try to stifle your sobs: that promise to return to the subject of literary translation will have to remain unfulfilled this week, as I have a burning question which has been bothering me since yesterday’s editorial meeting.
Of the titles scheduled for publication in Spring 2008, there are a few which we intend to produce in hardback. The decision was reached, fairly unanimously, that we would fall into line with industry practice by producing these hardbacks in a larger format. Previous Hesperus hardbacks, for the inexplicably (and frankly inexcusably!) uninitiated, have been the same size as our paperbacks, give or take a few millimetres’ allowance for the thicker covering. The page format has remained our standard size of about 12.5 x 19.5 cms.
This size works. It’s convenient, can be stowed in a bag and leave room for an emergency packet of crisps and other of life’s essentials, can be read on the tube without menacing your neighbours’ ribcages and incurring death stares into the bargain, and can be enjoyed from the comfort of a sofa or even, luxury of luxuries, bed, rather than the pulpit required to hold the average hardback. And, to my mind, it just looks nicer, however flabby that reasoning may be.
And yet we decided, en masse, that it may well be necessary to abandon this mode of publication, because the sad fact seems to be that bigger books sell better. And ever since, I’ve been tearing out my hair trying to figure out why??? Do people really prefer these unwiedly tomes? Has there, unbeknownst to me, been a crisis in the doorstop industry, forcing the panicked masses into the nation’s bookshops in search of the nearest unnecessarily large object?
Or is it simply, and depressingly, an issue of space in the bookshop? Katya hinted yesterday at the difficulty of getting our small-but-perfectly-formed books noticed on a stacked shelf, and it strikes me that the same issue is probably at play here. People are just more likely to notice something that encroaches more on their field of vision, to state the blindingly (boom boom!) obvious. So it seems that, if our books are to stand a fighting chance in a market increasingly dominated by stack-’em-high chain stores, we’ll have to give them a bit of extra muscle.
The fantasist in me would love to think that there was another, less dismal reason that these books sell better. Any ideas? Please…? I’d love to hear any thoughts on this issue.
ER
I personally love small hardbacks. Whenever I see one in a bookshop, I’m smitten – especially if it comes with one of those cute ribbon markers and a particularly lovely dustjacket with a texture that makes thrills run down my spine. (I’m shallow like that.)
But even I, a small-hardback-enthusiast, can’t suppress an instinctive response in the manner of ‘What, £12.99 for such a small book!?’ (Which is also closely related to, ‘What, £6.99 for a novella!?’) Mind you, I end up buying them anyway, in spite of this initial reaction. But that might have a lot to do with the difficulty of marketing them – a big book looks reassuringly like it’s good value for money, even when it’s actually just clumsy-looking, inconvenient to read and impossible to fit in a crowded bookcase. People may think, ‘Damn it, if I’m going to shell out the money for a hardback it had better look like a proper hardback!’
Perhaps it’s the same instinct that makes them drive SUVs?
PS: Now that I’m commenting I might as well add that I love the books you publish, love your blog, and just generally love everything Hesperus. And many thanks for linking back to my blog as well.
I’ve not seen the Hesperus hardbacks, but they sound lovely. It seems a shame to lose the small size. That said, whenever I try to conjure up the memory of a small format hardback on sale in a bookshop, it’s always got some kind of ‘reduced’ sticker on it. Or it’s in The Works.
I suppose there’s a perceived value factor: “I in’t paying more’n a tenner for that, it’s just a normal paperback wrapped in cardboard”. I think that a small format hardback is perceived as a paperback with stiffer covers and a big price jump, whereas a larger hardback is a different product altogether. Buying a large hardback makes a different statement about the purchaser. It says “I’m serious about my reading. I spend more to get the book I want sooner, bigger, weightier. In fact, there is a direct correlation between the weight of my books and the weight of my brain.”
When people pay the difference between a paperback and a hardback, most of the time, what they’re really paying for is what it says about them. What do small-format hardbacks say about their purchasers? Do we know? It could be anything from “I too am pretentious, but I have tiny hands” to “I’m a serious book collector, and I like nice editions but I have limited shelf space.” Personally, I like “I need small format hardbacks because I am rugged and well-travelled, with a well-developed taste in literature and a keenly developed aesthetic sense.”
The Moleskine journals are a great example. They’re lovely things, but they’re expensive. People pay the excess because their Moleskine journal says “I am Bruce Chatwin and/or Ernest Hemingway”.
What do you want your small format hardbacks to say?
How sad that it is these considerations that have to be taken into account. Personally a delicate smaller hardback feels so unusual and special to me that it will win over a clunky same-as-everything-else sized thing every time and I can’t be the only one who feels that way. How can we help? Shall I marshall together a team of Hesperus-Outward-Facers to keep the books in the public eye?
Hello all, and sorry for the late reply: I was off work yesterday.
Leena – thanks so much for the kind words. I think there’s probably a lot in what you say about a larger book seeming better value for money. I suppose it just seems so strange that the size can change a perception like this, when the content is exactly the same. But I guess it’s just one of those contradictions that’s at the centre of so many marketing problems.
Rob – I think I’d plump for your option too out of that list, although I might change ‘rugged’ to something slightly more feminine. Reading your post made me realise that I think that part of my problem is that I don’t really like hardbacks at all. Do you think that a hardback says more about its reader than a paperback? Personally I’m a bit frightened by the idea of being judged on my reading matter anyway, whatever format it comes in, although I do agree with you that it’s fairly unavoidable.
Lynne – Hesperus-Outward-Facers sounds like a fantastic idea! I think we’ve already got a small legion of them in London – employees and friends of the company – but taking the operation nationwide would be great. Either that, or it’d really confuse the book-buying public. In fact, I think I’m starting to get power mad just thinking about it. Better get back to some label sticking to take me down a peg or two…
I think all editions say something about their reader, although maybe hardbacks say it louder, because they’re (usually) larger, because they’re more expensive so they’re more ostentatious. Some differences between editions don’t say anything: Which Vintage edition of Of Human Bondage you’re reading, for example, probably depends on what was in the shop. Some differences are only there to provide a conscious choice of statement (“no, no. Harry Potter’s for adults too – look at the cover. Please don’t think I’m just having fun. I’m being inturleckshooall”).
A beaten-up second hand copy of a book has a certain message too: “I know my books. I really hunted this one out – or maybe: I buy so many books that I can’t afford to get them all new.” Funnily enough, if I saw somebody reading a really battered old paperback, I would assume it was bought second hand before I assumed that they were re-reading an old favourite from their own library.
I used to love hardbacks, and I’d buy a second hand hardback of a book rather than a new paperback. But that was when I was younger, and liked to surround myself with all these big volumes that reinforced my self-image as a devoted reader. Nowadays, I like handy paperbacks. I like to think that this is simply because I’m now a mature reader, and don’t care about creating an image with my reading. (Although, I suppose it might be because they reinforce my self-image as a mature reader who doesn’t care about creating an image with his reading.)
Only once recently did I deliberately choose a hardback over the paperback edition. That was a copy of Carlo Levi’s Fleeting Rome, which was a really nice small format hardback, and which I could get new for about the same price as the paperback. I chose the hardback (as opposed to the paperback) just because it was a really attractive edition, both to look at and to touch (even the jacket has lovely soft paper), without being too big, and without costing too much.
Thanks again for your thoughts, Rob. It seems that the consensus here is that the smaller format hardbacks deserve to be kept. I wonder, however, whether this is just because the ‘bookie’ types that will be attracted to publisher blogs prefer this more unusual format – the connoiseur’s hardback, if you will…
ER.
You’re probably right about bookie types. But aren’t bookie types your target market, though? One of the things that makes independent publishers so good is that they cater for this demographic that the publishing giants tend to either neglect or patronise.
I love your hardback format–the smaller size. I was just commenting what a lovely book the Ghata is. It is the perfect size, the pages–as a matter of fact they look sewn not glued (how often do you find that these days??)–open up nicely when I am reading the book. I personally wish you would stay with this format. Of course that said–like the other commenters have mentioned, I think people feel they are getting less for their money when it is a smaller format cloth edition. I try and not buy hardcovers for the simple fact I have too many piles as it is and I just can’t make any more room for them–paperbacks take up less room. Now Hesperus hardcovers will fit quite nicely on my shelves, however!
Rob: you’re absolutely right that bookie types are our target market, but it doesn’t ever hurt to expand that target. I’m not saying that we would ever do this at the expense of our content or our principles, but it would be lovely to attract some new readers. So many of our books really deserve a wider readership than they get, and if this may be one way of getting that for them, then it seems worth looking into… Again, we’re definitely not in the business of selling out, and will continue to cater for the niche market which all of us at Hesperus fall into ourselves. But we’ve got to ensure that we don’t do our books a disservice by attempting to preserve our membership of a literary elite.
Danielle: you’re right in thinking that our books are bound in the good old-fashioned way. Sadly enough, this was actually one of the things that drew me to Hesperus before I started working here. I was SO FED UP of all my books disintegrating within a few years of purchase! Thanks also for your kind words, again. I hope you enjoy your more recent Hesperus arrivals.
All the responses to this post have been duly noted. Thank you so much for your input. We’ll keep you posted.
ER
[...] 6th, 2007 by hesperuspress Neatly tying in to Rob’s comments the other day about what books say about their readers is this little gem. I stumbled across it today and [...]
Everyone else has already said it more eloquently but I thought I’d just add my vote for preferring small hardbacks. I try not to buy a lot of hardbacks primarily for space (and weight) reasons, but the large ones really are so clunky and awkward. For me there’s nothing more tempting than a small, beautifully-designed hardback.
I do see your point about not wanting to limit the target market, but aren’t hardbacks quite a bookie product anyway, as opposed to a more mainstream one? Especially given the premium on the price. If you try to compromise between the two markets, there’s a chance you’ll end up pleasing nobody… Why not go all in and make them a highly desirable bookie product, and look elsewhere for the market-widening product ideas? Like maybe an omnibus edition containing several of your gems by a single author, or, or something. “How to get people to read good books” – now there’s a topic and a half…
[...] might have it. And they DO look charming. I know this is a subject that we’ve touched on before, but I love the dinkiness of our books, and the fact that they work so beautifully as a [...]