How to Pick the Trim Size For Your Book

“So… what’s your favorite trim size?”

Book trim size isn’t something you ever need to worry about… until you decide to independently publish a print version of your book. Oh yeah. Another whole set of decisions to add to your growing pile of must-decides.

Not only do you need to design on your trim sizes for your cover designer, as I found out today, the trim size is part of the metadata you complete when you register your ISBNs.

Trim Sizes Depend on Your Publishing Plan

Before you dive down the trim size rabbit hole, you first get to decide how and where you plan to publish your print book.

Trade or Offset Printer vs Print on Demand Service

For print books, the first fork in the path is whether you want to work with an offset printer or a print on demand (POD) service.

Trade or offset printers are the traditional printers we think of for large print runs. Using an offset printer brings advantages; you will have a lower cost per book, more options in size and materials, and typically, a higher-quality product. Depending on the print shop, you’ll also work with a person who can show you options, sample materials, and answer your questions. The downside to working with an offset printer is you must order in bulk. You also may not live near a printer who will take a small order. The largest disadvantage to working with an offset printer is you’ll be responsible for logistics; transporting, shipping, and storage for your books.

Print on demand services offer the exact opposite experience. They can print a single book for a reasonable fee. They are online, meaning as long as you have an internet connection, you can get your books into the global system. Once you upload your files, your work is virtually done; the POD services print and ship the books as they are ordered, and they take care of the shipping. Most also provide extended distribution as an option. The downside is your cost per unit is higher, you have fewer options in how the book is produced, and the quality of the final product can be demonstrably lower.

As a new author without a large readership, I’m planning on using POD services. However, if I was to sell a bulk order (>1,000 books), I’d absolutely try working through an offset printer to do so. There are several Print on Demand options, but I’m going to talk about the two I plan to use for my printed books; KDP Print and Ingram Spark.

Print on Demand Options – Paperbacks

KDP Print (aka Amazon) provides several trim sizes, from 5″x8″ to 8.27″x11.69″. When my cover designer asked what trim size I planned to use, I pulled out a measuring tape and measured a bunch of my books.

“I’m planning to use 5.5″ x 8.25″ for my paperbacks,” said I.
“5.5” x 8.25″ isn’t an option on Amazon KDP,” said they.

Really. The size is available on Ingram Spark, but not on KDP. I had to compare the offerings from each platform to find a standard size that worked between each.

Complicating the choice further was comparing the POD paperback trim size options to what Vellum can format (more about text formatting later). The table on the left captures the trim size options available in May 2021. I’ve highlighted the options consistent across the three systems I’m using.

Even after you’ve picked your trim size, you have more to consider. What kind of paper do you want? White or cream pages? Are you including illustrations, tables, or charts? Are you printing black and white, or color? How do you want your cover to appear? Glossy or matte?

Print on Demand Options – Hardbacks

At the time of this post, KDP Print does not offer a hardback version, so one would suppose the number of choices decreased. Not so fast.

Again, there are a number of trim sizes, but this time, the options are determined by what kind of hard cover you want. If you’re looking for a case laminate cover (book cover image printed directly on hardcover stock), the sizes range from 5″ x 8″ to 8.5″ x 11″. If you want a dust jacket, there are four sizes available.

Your Trim Size Choices Affect Costs

Trim size choices are more than aesthetics; your choices can impact the base cost of the book. On the practical side, the more premium choices cost extra; for example, a jacketed book is more costly than a case laminate book. For longer books, a larger trim size can decrease the overall number of pages, decreasing cost.

Why I’m Using Two POD Services

There are several reasons I’m choosing to use two services, despite the extra effort.

Because Amazon provides a POD service, distributing from another service to them can be tricky. I’ve seen authors complain the Amazon stores list their print materials as “out of stock”, even though they are POD. Not having your books available at the largest online bookstore when a reader is interested is a sure way to lose the reader.

So why use Ingram Spark at all? Distribution.

Ingram Spark has a broader distribution network than KDP; in fact, Amazon uses the Ingram POD service to distribute KDP’s POD books to customers on other continents. Moreover, through Ingram, I can set a wholesale discount which gives me a chance of getting my books into libraries and bookstores. I’ve also heard Ingram’s quality control is better, but I can’t speak to that yet. I’m planning to order author copies through both services to compare them, and I’ll report back when I do.

Because I’m choosing to use two separate POD services, I have incurred an extra cost from my cover designer; the specifications for each service are slightly different, requiring two different cover files for my standard paperback edition. To date, I’ve settled on the 5.5″ x 8.5″ trim size for my standard paperback version, and 6″ x 9″ trim size (jacketed) for my hardcover version.

This week, I got a preview of my book cover. I love it, and I’m so excited to share it with you in a future post! Have you created print versions of your books? I’d love to hear about your experiences!

Header Photo by William Warby on Unsplash