Mass-market, trade, pulp, digest: book formats explained

The Format field on a ctlgs edition takes one value from a list of more than forty. The list came over from Bookogs, where members asked for formats one at a time over several years, so it mixes sizes, bindings, kinds of publication and a few things that are not formats at all. This guide says what each one means and which to pick when two seem to fit.

The rule of thumb: Format describes the physical object you are holding. What the book is about goes in Genre, and anything special about this copy, like a signature, goes on your copy.

Hardbacks

Hardback is a book bound in rigid boards, usually card covered in cloth, paper or leather. A dust jacket does not change the format: a hardback with a jacket and one without are both Hardback. Whether the jacket is there, and what it looks like, goes in the images and the notes.

Flexibound sits between a hardback and a paperback. The book is bound like a hardback but the covers bend: think of a Bible in imitation leather, or a field guide with a stiff laminated cover. Older books in limp leather or leather-like cloth belong here too.

Paperbacks

A paperback has a cover of card or heavy paper, usually glued to the pages. The list offers several kinds.

Mass-Market Paperback is the small, cheap format, about 4 by 7 inches, printed on thin paper and sold from racks in supermarkets, stations and airports as well as bookshops. It usually follows the hardback.

Trade Paperback is larger and better made, often the same size as the hardback (6 by 9 inches is common), on better paper, and priced between the two.

Paperback covers both when you cannot tell which, and is the right choice for most paperbacks outside North America, where the mass-market and trade labels are rarely used.

Soft cover and Pocket book are the same thing under other names. Bookogs members looked for a difference between paperback and soft cover and could not find one, and in many European languages "pocket book" is simply the word for a mass-market paperback. Watch the translations, too: German publishers call the pocket format Taschenbuch and often use the English word "Paperback" for the larger one. Prefer Paperback, Mass-Market Paperback or Trade Paperback for new entries. Don't change other people's entries just to swap one word for another; that only fills the history with edits that change nothing.

Magazines

Old fiction magazines came in sizes with names, and collectors use them.

• Pulp Magazine: about 7 by 10 inches, on cheap, rough wood-pulp paper, usually with ragged untrimmed edges. Published from 1896 into the 1950s. Thrilling Wonder Stories, February 1949 is one.
• Bedsheet Magazine: about 9½ by 12 inches, the size of Life, with trimmed edges and a square spine. Early science fiction titles such as Amazing Stories started this size. Unknown Worlds, August 1942 is one.
• Digest: about 5½ inches wide and 7½ to 8¼ high, the size of *Reader's Digest*. Many fiction magazines switched to it as the pulps died in the 1950s.
• Magazine: everything else, including the ordinary modern size (about 8⅜ by 10⅞ inches) and the glossy "slicks" that paid writers better than the pulps.

Magazines changed size during their runs. Unknown began as a pulp, became a bedsheet, and went back to pulp size for its last issues. Pick the format for the issue in front of you, not the title's usual size.

Journal is for academic journals, Zine for self-published, usually photocopied magazines, and e-Zine for digital ones.

Small and unusual books

• Chapbook: a short publication, up to about 40 pages, usually poetry or fiction, usually stapled through the fold. A few are hardbound. Island Funeral is one.
• Pamphlet: a short unbound or stapled booklet that isn't a chapbook.
• Broadside: a single sheet printed on one side.
• Miniature book: in the United States a book under 3 inches tall; in much of Europe anything up to 10 cm. Give the actual size in Notes.
• Board Book, Pop-Up Book, Padded Baby Book, **Stamped/Die Cut Stories and Soundbook** (a book with a built-in sound panel) are for children's books built around how they are made.
• Codex, Incunable (printed before 1501), Post-Incunable (the decades just after) and Manuscript are for early and handwritten books.
• Loose-leaf/Binder and Spiral-Bound are what they say.

Formats that are really something else

Some values describe how a book was sold rather than what it is: Club Edition (printed for a book club), Promo, **Printing/Uncorrected Proof (an advance copy sent out before publication), Facsimile** and Box Set. The trouble is that a club edition is also a hardback or a paperback, and a facsimile is still bound one way or another, but the field holds only one value. Pick the one that matters most for telling this edition apart, usually the special one, and put the other in Notes, for example "Hardback, book club edition" or "Box set of four paperbacks in a card slipcase".

The same goes for Hardback + CD, Paperback + CD, **Paperback + Cassette and Paperback + Flexi-Disc**. Bookogs stopped adding these when it became clear every book format would need a copy for every music format. Use them when they fit; otherwise pick the book's format and describe what comes with it in Notes.

Audiobook, e-Book and BARD Cartridge (the cartridge used by the US library service for blind and print-disabled readers) are for books that are not printed on paper. Say in Notes what the audiobook is on (CD, cassette, vinyl) and how many discs.

Sheet Music is printed music. Its ISMN goes in the identifying codes, as the codes guide explains.

Bindings

There is no binding field, so bindings go in Notes. The words to use:

• Perfect bound: pages glued at the spine, with a square back. Most paperbacks and many thicker magazines.
• Saddle-stitched: folded sheets stapled through the fold. Thin magazines, chapbooks, comics.
• Sewn: sheets stitched with thread, either through the fold (saddle sewn) or through the whole book from front to back (side sewn). Most older hardbacks are sewn.
• Spiral or coil and comb: a wire or plastic spiral, or a plastic comb, through punched holes.

Two other details people ask about: French flaps are a paperback cover extended a few inches and folded inward, like the flaps of a dust jacket. Write "Paperback with French flaps" in Notes. Large print, illustrated, abridged and limited describe the edition, not its format, and go in Notes too. A signature in your own copy goes on your copy.

The format list is under discussion on the forum, including whether bindings and sizes should become tags you can combine. Until something changes, one format plus a clear sentence in Notes says everything a field could.