Got the newest Jim Butcher Dresden Files book out in paperback — Small Favor — today in the mail from Amazon, and …
Rrg.
For the past few years, the publishing industry has been screwing around with what I call “tall paperbacks” (I’m sure there’s an official term for them). They’s the same width as a normal mass market paperback, but a half-inch taller or so (7-1/2 vs 6-7/8 inches).
Just all enough to not really fit in our custom paperback shelves up in the loft.
Fortunately, to date, the only books I’ve been at all interested in that have come out in that format have been Robert Parker Spenser (et al.) mysteries, and, honestly, if I wait a few months, the hardcovers show up on the B&N remainders racks for less than the new paperbacks. So I made it a “principled decision” to not buy the new format.
Until, of course, it turns out that’s what this book is in (regardless of the dimensions Amazon lists).
Rrg.
So for that one book (and, I suppose, for future volumes), I’ll have to either shelve it with the hardcovers (a waste of space), shelve it horizontally, or redo a section of bookshelves.
(Yes, I know, if I had it on Kindle then it would still fit in the same Kindle space. That’s beside the point.)
I’m sure that this is being done for some amazing marketing reason — some great PR wonk has statistics and PowerPoint slides to prove that customers are 7.35% more likely to buy a tall paperback than a normal-sized one, because they stand out on the shelves better or something. Me? I just find it really, seriously, annoying.
Don’t mess with standards.
I ordered the book mail-order. When it turned out to be in this contemptible tall format, I returned it. Unread.
I’ve been reading and enjoying Dresden for a long time now, but if that’s what format all the books are going to be from now on, I’ll give the series up. That’s how much I hate this paperback format.
I’m not quite willing to go that far, but I’m not a happy camper by any means.
Agreed, Dave! I’ve anxiously awaited the release of Small Favor in paperback for months–I even abstained from reading the hard cover because I started with paperbacks and nothing else can quite compare.
But even more than that, I was looking forward to the fresh matte finish–the kind that so many of the other covers have–that creases and cracks so prettily, much to my somewhat morbid satisfaction. But then this little abomination showed up on the shelves with its awkward height (which creates a few too many line breaks than I’m comfortable viewing) and a positively obnoxious sheen that promises to put up a fight if I want creases in the spine.
So now I’m torn between sating my great hunger for more Dresden or bowing to my abhorrence of this volume’s aesthetics. More than likely I’ll just suck it up and start reading because, really, who can pass up The Dresden Files?
But I won’t like it.
Well, you’ll like the book (I think it’s the best of the past few), but the form factor remains a bit off.