Little Book Series 3

[lweron]

Looks like we are back leather bound for A Little Magenta Book of Malevolence. I wonder why it was switched back.

[Dan Hocker]

Looks like we are back leather bound for A Little Magenta Book of Malevolence. I wonder why it was switched back.

My guess on the changing materials would be color availability. Somewhere in either the beginning of this series or the end of the last series they had to switch printers because of damages from the printer they were using. My guess is the new printer couldn't get all the same materials / color options they used before.

Edit: Also generally speaking there's usually only so many color options in a given material selection. So if the series has more books in it than a material has color options, there's no choice but to switch materials.

[dannyboy121070]

My Magenta book arrived today. Man, is the cover off-center!

I'm reading older LITTLE books, and they all have a sewn binding, and I can't really remember what the McCammon had, but this one has a glued binding, which is incredibly annoying, because as I read the Garton, Barron, and Morrell books, I kept telling myself "Yeah, they're packed with typos and production errors, but at least they're sewn." Now we don't even get that? This is basically lower than print-on-demand quality, at this point.

[Martin]

My Magenta book arrived today. Man, is the cover off-center!

I'm reading older LITTLE books, and they all have a sewn binding, and I can't really remember what the McCammon had, but this one has a glued binding, which is incredibly annoying, because as I read the Garton, Barron, and Morrell books, I kept telling myself "Yeah, they're packed with typos and production errors, but at least they're sewn." Now we don't even get that? This is basically lower than print-on-demand quality, at this point.

This is the first mention I have seen of a binding change. My copy is on it's way from CD. Will be interesting to see how it looks.

[Marmaduke Grigsby]

My Magenta book arrived today. Man, is the cover off-center!

I'm reading older LITTLE books, and they all have a sewn binding, and I can't really remember what the McCammon had, but this one has a glued binding, which is incredibly annoying, because as I read the Garton, Barron, and Morrell books, I kept telling myself "Yeah, they're packed with typos and production errors, but at least they're sewn." Now we don't even get that? This is basically lower than print-on-demand quality, at this point.

I'm showing my ignorance here, but how can you tell? Here are the previous 5 editions before the Pinborough book. They all look glued to me. I don't have any before Series III.

BINDING.jpg

[dannyboy121070]

I haven't really paid attention to the newer books until this one, but the older ones that I've read recently, such as the Garton, Morrell, and Barron books, are all sewn.

[Martin]

So I had not noticed that. The current series is glued and the older books are sewn,
Little Book Binding.JPG

[ncleapyear]

The Mort Castle little book appears to be the last one with sewn signatures.

So: the foil stamp is off center, Madonna (Maddona!!) is misspelled in the table of contents, and the book itself is essentially a perfect-bound POD paperback with boards on it. What next?

Some have stated that $30 isn't an extravagant sum, and it isn't really. However, the most recent CD Novella, Mystery Road, is the same price as the little books (physically, CD's book is a pretty flawless and nice to look at), so I'm not sure I buy the argument that thirty dollars just won't get you a quality product. No doubt there are economies of scale operating here, since CD is a much larger operation, but honestly BP can do better. They could certainly go back to a stitched binding.

[Dan Hocker]

I'm just guessing here. My guess is the binding changed when they were forced to change printers. From experience weird trim sizes can be a major problem. For instance on Brian's new children's book we had to find a completely new (to us printer) because none of our current printers could handle the trim size. We've also had trouble in the past with the signature series books because of the trim size. If I'm remembering correctly the last little book Borderlands did with their last printer they had to have half the run (or more) reprinted because the printer chewed the books up, basically forcing Borderlands to switch. So I'm guessing the new printer can't do that trim size in exactly the same way.

I will say there's really nothing wrong with them being glued on a book this small. It only really makes a different (durability wise) when you get into bigger books. For example I have a TPB of The Hobbit that has probably been read 100 times in it's life time that's perfectly fine, but about half of my TPB's of The Wheel of Time series started disintegrating after their 3 read (those books are almost all 1,000 pages plus).

[Martin]

I'm just guessing here. My guess is the binding changed when they were forced to change printers. From experience weird trim sizes can be a major problem. For instance on Brian's new children's book we had to find a completely new (to us printer) because none of our current printers could handle the trim size. We've also had trouble in the past with the signature series books because of the trim size. If I'm remembering correctly the last little book Borderlands did with their last printer they had to have half the run (or more) reprinted because the printer chewed the books up, basically forcing Borderlands to switch. So I'm guessing the new printer can't do that trim size in exactly the same way.

I will say there's really nothing wrong with them being glued on a book this small. It only really makes a different (durability wise) when you get into bigger books. For example I have a TPB of The Hobbit that has probably been read 100 times in it's life time that's perfectly fine, but about half of my TPB's of The Wheel of Time series started disintegrating after their 3 read (those books are almost all 1,000 pages plus).

Dan, I think you nailed it. Upon closer look the first few books in the current series are sewn binding. They appear to switch about the time the printer switch occurred.

[dannyboy121070]

I'm almost done with Ed Gorman's LITTLE ORANGE BOOK OF ORNERY STORIES, and, man.....I always forget just how GOOD Gorman was. Each story has been outstanding.

[RonClinton]

Ed was one of the best, in any genre he chose to write.

[slayn666]

The Blake Crouch little book is up for preorder.

[Martin]

The Blake Crouch little book is up for preorder.

I got the email. He is also trying to help Gauntlet out by promoting Hope and Miracles. Problem being he still states summer release when Gauntlet moved it to fall some time back. Oh yea, he also states that all editions are signed by Stephen King, Frank Darabont and Tyson Blue.

[mhatchett]

Ed was one of the best, in any genre he chose to write.

One of my best buys ever, was the boxed Gorman set that PS Publishing put out. I bought it from Camelot Books years ago during one of their Xmas sales. Such an interesting writer.