Empirically speaking, the very basics one needs to know about creating a perfect bound book is that the minimum number of pages required is 24 and that anything longer needs to be dividable by 4. For example, if your novella is 157 pages long then you will need to add some end pages, perhaps an index, a dedication, a title page (whatever) until you creep up to 160 pages – or make edits until it comes back to 156 pages. Then it can be perfect bound, which is the usual way books are.
Beyond this, my knowledge of how they’re put together at the printers is very limited. If you want to make your own books at home – and a great many people do, I’ve discovered – YouTube and Google are full of helpful tutorials.
My children have taken up book-making in their own way. It was initiated on their own (well, Keira can officially take the credit) and for the past several weeks Adam and I have been treated to their creations. These ‘books’ have no real narrative; they are just a series of pictures put together in the sequence in which they were drawn. But I love them all.
And who knows what they might come up with if they keep going? They might take over Miscellaneous Press one day. Some new blood might be nice because I can tell you I’m getting mighty tired of chasing up on owed accounts. It’s not ‘all about the art’ at all. It’s about getting paid, getting ahead, plotting, planning, and any other number of ulcer-inducing stresses. It’s business. And it’s hard.
So when people email me to pitch their novel even though I explicitly ask them not to, I feel bad because I’m in no position to be able to help their dreams come to pass.
Perhaps one day. Just not now. Sorry.
