Two last decisions - Official Website of Sidney Niemeyer

Sidney Niemeyer and Klaus Mayer at 25th annual meeting of ITWG

When you upload your book on Amazon, you need to choose the type of cover and color of paper. I like the matte covers on a couple of my books, so I picked matte rather than glossy. Then I had to choose the color of the paper. One expert recommended white, so I choose it rather than cream.

But when I got my proof copy, I had my doubts. The feel of the matte finish on the cover wasn’t nearly as nice as the books on my shelf.

And during the time I waited for the proof copy to arrive, my book designer told me that fiction books typically have cream paper, because it leads to “smoother reading.” Who knew?

Upon comparing my proof book to the novels on my bookshelf, I discovered that the paper in most of them appeared darker in color than the white paper in my book.

So I ordered a second proof book. With a glossy cover and cream-colored pages.

By comparing the two proof books side-by-side, my decisions became easier. The glossy cover had a much nicer feel, and the cover “popped” a bit more. I also noticed that most of my fiction paperbacks have a glossy cover. Glossy cover, it is!

When I compared the page color of my two proof books to my fiction books, I discovered that all of them are closer to the Amazon cream color.

I didn’t bother to test read a chapter from each proof book to see if cream does give a smoother read. The decisions by many other authors and publishers made the choice easy. Cream-colored paper, it is!