The ingredients in creating a physical book are many, and we want your end product—your book—to be tasteful. Let us compare your book to a cake. A paperback book might be a cupcake, easy to carry around, convenient. Not known for longevity, a softcover/paperback is economical and perhaps even marketable. On the other hand, a hardcover book would be a birthday cake—a special, distinctive, custom-made affair. For book binding elements, there are headbands, endsheets, round- or square-back spines, and marker ribbons of satin or polyester to consider. Hardcover materials can be derived from leather, cloth, or composite paper.
Close-up of embossings: Crosshatch, Morocco, Staghorn
Our cover materials vary as much as the genres of the books themselves. Product names of cover materials range from alluring to downright odd:
Rainbow
Silktouch
Haalflinen
Brillianta
Matador
Prestige
Arizona
Kivar
Skivertex
Close-up of an embossed “rosebud” endsheet from Unredeemable Time
Unredeemable Time by Virginia C. Wood, clockwise from left: endsheets, interior page, and cover stamp
And if the cover material is the icing on the cake, the embossing would be the icing on the icing. By embossing I don’t mean the lettering (the book title, stamped in gold or silver foil, for example). I mean the texture embossed into the cover material itself. Endsheets can also be embossed.
A subtle, classy touch for the discerning eye, embossings come in all styles. The names do intrigue:
vicuana
moroccan
kidskin
firenze
vellum
staghorn
llama
ceylon
grand levant
spunglass
Cover stamps have already been discussed in an earlier post, but just remember (we learned the hard way) that if the cover material of your book is a darker color (burgundy, navy, forest green, dark brown), choose a light/bright foil, like silver or gold. If your book cover is a lighter shade, like gray, yellow, orange, or sky blue, choose a dark pigment foil stamp, like black, blue, or brown.
Whatever materials and colors you choose, we’ll be sure to cook you up a good book, even a cookbook. Delectable!
Ali de Groot is director of publishing at Modern Memoirs.