This is a small book with a big job to do. Sylvia: The Essentials is the lyric book made to sit alongside the recording of Sylvia — A Musical Revolution, and it had to be pocketable, readable and good enough to keep. We printed it A6, 48 pages, perfect bound on uncoated stock with a matt laminated cover. Getting there took a proper conversation about type size, and that conversation is the interesting part.
It is a smart, holdable little thing at A6 — the sort of size that slips into an album case or a coat pocket. The cover is a hit of bright orange with heavy condensed black type, and the moment you open it the whole palette flips: black pages, orange lyrics, and documentary photography from the recording sessions running opposite the words.
That rhythm is what makes it work. Lyrics on one page, a photograph on the other, all the way through. You get a singer at the mic mid-take, the control room from behind the desk, cast members laughing in the live room with mugs of tea. It reads like a souvenir of the days the record was made rather than a lyric sheet, and there is a full-bleed spread in the middle that just says BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE in orange across black. If you are making something similar, our self published book printing service covers formats from A6 up.
A6 is a lovely format and a demanding one. The cover is 250gsm uncoated with matt lamination to the outer face, which gives a small book some backbone and keeps that flat orange free of fingerprints. Inside, 48 pages of 120gsm uncoated, perfect bound to a 4mm spine. Everything is four colour throughout, which matters more than it sounds: most of the interior is a solid dark ground with orange type reversed out of it, and dense coverage like that on an uncoated sheet has to be handled carefully to keep small type crisp rather than filled in.
Here is our honest printer’s-eye note, because it is the most useful thing in this case study. On a 48-page A6 book, a 250gsm cover and 120gsm text make the object feel substantial and premium in the hand — and they also make it a bit of a challenge to flick through. Thinner stocks would turn more easily and put less pressure on the spine. Go lighter and you lose some of that quality feel; stay heavier and you trade a little of the reading experience. Small formats are a genuine juggling act, and there is no single right answer — only the one that suits how the book will actually be used.
The first quote we sent was for a 12-page A6 stapled booklet. Then the design started and reality arrived: a full set of musical lyrics at 10pt type on an A6 page came out at around 100 pages. Suddenly the little booklet was a book.
So we priced the alternatives properly rather than guessing. A4 at 100 pages, then A5 at 100 pages, alongside the A6. Seeing the three side by side made the cost of going bigger very clear. But the deciding factor was not a spreadsheet — it was the free printed sample pack. One of the swatches carries a type scale printed from 6pt upwards, so you can look at real ink on real paper and judge for yourself what is comfortable to read. Our honest advice was that 9 or 10pt is the minimum we would recommend for book text.
With the swatch in hand the team made an informed call: stay at A6, drop to 8pt, and open the margins. Song lyrics are read in short bursts rather than page after page of continuous prose, so the format won — and it brought the extent down to a manageable 48 pages with a 4mm spine. “Thanks for all the info and the samples/swatches. Really helpful.”
Early on there was a question about a “stitched spine”, which usually means one of two very different things. We explained that we do not offer sewn binding on its own, but that anything from 32 pages up opens the door to perfect binding — or a hardback with section-sewn insides if the budget stretched. Clearing that up in one email saved a lot of back and forth later.
The team sent a work-in-progress PDF days before the deadline so we could look at it while there was still time to act, which is exactly the right instinct. Our notes were small and specific: the type could come down a touch to give the pages breathing space, and important content wanted to sit 8-10mm clear of the spine side. You lose 2-3mm into the gutter of any perfect bound book, and on a tightly bound A6 that margin is the difference between comfortable and cramped.
When the final files came in the inside pages had no bleed. The producer had tried getting AI to add it, which it had done, but not well. Rather than send the file back and burn a day, we opened it in InDesign and sorted the bleed ourselves. “Amazing. I’ve been trying to work it out. Ended up getting ai to do it, which it did, but not brilliantly! Thanks for sorting.”
The date was fixed: an event on the afternoon of the 5th of May, with a bank holiday sitting in the way on the 4th. We worked backwards, asked for print-ready artwork on the 27th of April, and aimed to deliver on the Friday — because nobody sensible delivers on the morning of the thing. Proof approved the same afternoon it went out, and the books landed on the Friday as planned.
Delivery had its own wrinkle. The address is rural and the postcode does not put a sat nav anywhere near the door, so we asked for a proper description of the route in rather than hoping. We got a map pin, a note about which lane to approach from and where to leave the boxes, and passed all of it to the driver. It is not glamorous, but a pallet stuck at the end of the wrong lane on a Friday afternoon is how deadlines get missed.
Most of the value on this job came before anything went on press. We quoted three formats so the size decision could be made with real numbers. We sent printed samples with a type scale so it could be judged in ink rather than on a screen. We gave a straight recommendation on minimum type size and then supported the decision that came back, because it was the right one for a lyric book. We reviewed unfinished artwork for free and fixed the bleed ourselves instead of bouncing it back. And we planned the delivery around a bank holiday and a tricky rural address rather than around our own schedule.
Working through the same stage? Our perfect binding set-up guide, this overview of standard paper sizes and our rundown of book printing paper types will settle most of the early questions.
1) Judge type size in print, not on screen. A 10pt line looks fine on a monitor and reads very differently on an A6 page. Order a free sample pack and look at the printed type scale before you commit.
2) Match the type size to how the book is read. 9 or 10pt is our minimum for continuous prose. Lyrics, recipes, poems and reference entries are read in short bursts, so you can go a little smaller if the margins are generous.
3) Price the bigger formats before you rule them out. Going up a size can be cheaper than tripling your page count. Ask for the comparison.
4) Keep content 8-10mm off the spine edge. Perfect binding swallows 2-3mm into the gutter, and small formats bind tighter. Build that margin in from the start.
5) Paper weight is a trade-off, not an upgrade. Heavier stock feels more premium and turns less easily. On a small perfect bound book, think about how the reader will hold it before you default to the thickest option.
6) Send the work in progress. A rough PDF a week out gets you useful feedback. A finished PDF the night before gets you a problem.
7) Never deliver on the day of the event. Count the bank holidays, add a buffer, and tell your printer the date that actually matters.
Got something small and lovely in mind? Map out format, extent and paper in a few minutes with the Printed Project Builder and we will take it from there.
