Advice from a Professional Ghostwriter and Book Editor
Many of my valued clients want to publish their books in paperback form, which is good, but they worry that their book will seem too skinny. They ask me if there are ways to “pump up” the page count, because more pages means a fatter book.
Typically, you need 30,000 words to create a paperback book that feels substantial in your hand. For a 5″ x 8″ paperback, this would give you a spine width of roughly 3/8″. You can boost the page count (and make a thicker book) by:
1) Increase the size of the font. For my clients, I format the original Word file in a serif font like Georgia, with a size of 10 point, which is standard for literary books. Bumping the size up to 11 or even 12 point will increase the page count. The big bestseller “Who Moved My Cheese?” by Dr. Spencer Johnson is a very short book – maybe 20,000 words – and the font size looks like 14 point Times New Roman. Plus, they left plenty of empty space on the pages, and by doing so they managed to pump up the page count of the book to 96 pages.
2) Increase the size of the margins on the pages. The more white space around the text, the more pages you’ll have, and a fatter book.
3) Make the size of the book smaller (i.e., 7 x 4″ rather than 9 x 6″). Smaller pages = more pages.
4) Use cream paper, not white. It looks much better and it’s slightly thicker.
I do not recommend putting a space between each paragraph, because this is unprofessional and cumbersome, and creates big problems. Always stay with indented paragraphs. Of course, in a Kindle book many of these considerations are moot – the reader never sees the entire book at once, only a single electronic “page” at a time.
- Thomas Hauck is a professional ghostwriter and book editor of both fiction and non-fiction books. Contact Thomas for your free consultation.