If you need to determine the thickness of a book's spine so that you can work out the the size of artwork required for the book cover and spine, use the following formula:
10 divided by 176, multiplied by the number of pages of text within the book, divided by 90, multiplied by the weight of the paper in gsm, add 1mm for the crease in the cover and this will give you the book block thickness in millimetres. Add 3mm to this figure to account for the cover and you have the spine thickness of a finished book.
If you're having a hardback book printed, artwork for your hardback book cover needs to be larger than for a softback book because the cover image needs to be able to wrap around the edges of the greyboard card used to create the hard spine and covers.
So if you needed to determine the artwork area of a hardback book cover, the formula would be used as follows:
Front Cover
Width: 210mm + 5mm = 215mm
Height: 297mm + 5mm = 303mm
(+15mm on outside, top and bottom edges for image bleed)
Back Cover
Width: 210mm + 5mm = 215mm
Height: 297mm + 5mm = 303mm
(+15mm on outside, top and bottom edges for image bleed)
Spine Thickness
Artwork Width = 10.6mm + 3mm
Artwork Height: 297mm + 5mm = 303mm
(+15mm on top and bottom edges for image bleed)
Softback Book Covers
As the cover doesn't wrap around a softback book the only addition needed is a 3mm bleed around the edge of the combined covers and spine.
About this Author
Richard Foulkes has worked for ASK Print for several years and is the studio manager.
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