Cynthia came to us with a polar bear, a flying saucer and a tick in the box marked "a high end project which looks impressive". Her first picture book with us, A Fish Called Andromeda, had just been named a finalist for several awards, and Polar Bear and the UFO, written by Cynthia and illustrated by Anne Costa for her imprint Idle Time Press, needed to stand next to it on the shelf. What she asked for was a stapled softback. What we printed, a month of quotes later, was a 210×210mm case-bound hardback with printed endpapers, 170gsm gloss inside pages and a gloss-laminated cover, in an edition of 300.
The enquiry form read 210×210mm, 32 pages, 300gsm silk cover with matt lamination, 130gsm gloss inside, wire stitched. It is a perfectly good spec and we priced it. But a book that is going to sit beside an award finalist, be read at bedtime a few hundred times and be handed to booksellers wants boards, so we priced it a second way: as a hardback, with the printed cover on 170gsm silk wrapped over greyboard, laminated, and printed endpapers front and back. Cynthia chose the hardback. One change came late. Before the order went live the cover lamination went from matt to gloss, and it was the right move, because Anne Costa's paintings are dark, starry and wet-looking, and gloss gives that kind of artwork depth and sheen that matt would have quietly flattened.
A case-bound book needs enough pages to make a spine. We treat 28 inside pages as the floor for a hardback, and on a picture book we would far rather see 32; any thinner and the text block has too little shoulder to case in cleanly, and the spine looks apologetic on a shelf. Polar Bear and the UFO was always a 32-page story, which made that decision easy. Those 32 pages went onto 170gsm gloss rather than the 130gsm the form had suggested. Mike's note from handling the finished book says it plainly: the 170gsm paper is the better solution. Gloss gives maximum punch to the greens of the northern lights and the black of an Arctic night, and at 170gsm the pages turn with a satisfying weight without ever feeling like card.
Open the cover and the first thing you see is a navy sky drawn in white line like a star chart: the bear, a fox, whales, a shoal of fish and one small, glowing saucer. That is the printed endpaper, two 4pp sections on 170gsm uncoated, one at the front and one at the back. Plain endpapers are the default on most hardbacks and nobody notices them. Printed endpapers are noticed by everybody, and they cost far less than most authors assume. On uncoated stock the line work has a chalky, drawn quality that suits the constellation idea perfectly, and it makes a deliberate contrast with the glossy pages that follow. If you are planning a hardback picture book and can afford one extra, make it this one.
The 300 copies, were delivered to Cynthia in Micheldever, Hampshire, later that month. Square 210×210mm picture books at 28 to 32 pages, in PUR paperback or hardback, are one of the formats we print most, and this is what the hardback version looks like when every choice is made in the book's favour.
For another square hardback children's book, see Nippy the Baby Crocodile, and our children's book printing page has instant prices for paperback and hardback from real jobs we have printed. Ready to give your own story boards and endpapers? Get an instant price at exwhyzed.com, or talk it through with Harriet and Mike.
