Time once again for my occasional series "Women with great hair fleeing gothic houses!"
And today it's a Queen-Sized Gothic special...
'Queen-Size' is a polite way of saying large print, which is a format that has a lot going for it. For a start it's much easier to read!
However for years the standard size for a paperback book was the dimensions of a coat pocket. Paperbacks were meant to be read on the train or bus, so they had to be compact. The US term for them was 'pocket books.'
Fonts were serif - normally Baskerville or Times New Roman - and sometimes as small as 10 point. Text margins were very narrow and line spacing was tight. It was a constant battle to fit readability into as small a space as possible, and it didn't suit all audiences.
So in 1964 Frederick Thorpe, a publisher from Leicester, began reprinting classic novels in 16 point to help older people with sight problems enjoy them. Initially the main market for these was public libraries, but they soon made their way into the world of paperbacks.
A larger font means a larger book, but not necessarily a longer read. So gothic romance publishers coined the phrase Queen-Sized to indicate a normal length novel that was just in a larger print.
Nowadays anything 14 point and over is considered large print, but size isn't the only way to improve readability: more use of white space, wider line spacing and better paper stock all help.
Yet it wasn't until the mid-1970s that publishers began to abandon the convention that a paperback had to fit into an overcoat pocket. Sizes gradually increased as the market for hardbacks began to reduce. You'd struggle to get most modern paperbacks into a small handbag!
The distinction between paperback and hardback has also become blurred over the last 40 years and one is no longer seen as superior to the other. In fact some modern paperbacks have been made deliberately bigger to suggest higher literary quality.
If you self-publish it's still a good idea to keep to 12 or 13 point in a serif font. Chapter headings can be sans-serif for contrast, but it's best to stick to two or three typefaces to ensure consistency.
Larger fonts and book sizes are one of the many ways that gothic romance influenced modern publishing. As a genre it's done a lot to change how we view the humble paperback, as well as how we market and promote it.
More women with great hair fleeing gothic houses another time!
Mind how you flee...
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Given the current heatwave, I feel obliged to ask my favourite question: is it time to bring back the leisure suit?
Let's find out...
Now we all know what a man's lounge suit is, but if we're honest it can be a bit... stuffy. Formal. Businesslike. Not what you'd wear 'in da club' as the young folks say.
So for many years tailors have been experimenting with less formal, but still upmarket gents attire. The sort of garb you could wear for both a high level business meeting AND for listening to the Moody Blues in an espresso bar. Something versatile.
Today in pulp I look back at the publishing phenomenon of gamebooks: novels in which YOU are the hero!
A pencil and dice may be required for this thread...
Gamebooks are a simple but addictive concept: you control the narrative. At the end of each section of the story you are offered a choice of outcomes, and based on that you turn to the page indicated to see what happens next.
Gamebook plots are in fact complicated decision tree maps: one or more branches end in success, but many more end in failure! It's down to you to decide which path to tread.
He was the terror of London; a demonic figure with glowing eyes and fiery breath who could leap ten feet high. The penny dreadfuls of the time wrote up his exploits in lurid terms. But who was he really?
Today I look at one of the earliest pulp legends: Spring-Heeled Jack!
London has always attracted ghosts, and in the 19th Century they increasingly left their haunted houses and graveyards and began to wader the capital's streets.
But one apparition caught the Victorian public attention more than most...
In October 1837 a 'leaping character' with a look of the Devil began to prey on Londoners. Often he would leap high into the air and land in front of a carriage, causing it to crash. It would then flee with a high-pitched laugh.