Page counts (was: What does $3 a page mean to you?)

[Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>]

Krista Van Laan wondered: <<I don't know why publishers don't use word 
counts, especially since they like to use Word. In my experience, they 
created a ridiculously complex method for us to count our pages, all in 
an effort to make it as much like an old typewriter as they could -- 
asking for a manuscript in courier, double-spaced, not taking advantage 
of word counts, etc.>>

This mystifies me completely. In fact, "character" counts would make 
even more sense, since it's far easier to (based on known frequencies 
of various letters in typical English text*) estimate how many 
_characters_ will fit on a typical page, and this gets you past known 
problems related to determining what constitutes a word. After all, if 
you're writing about the separation of church and state, 300 instances 
of "antidisestablishmentarianism" will take up far more space than 200 
instances of "hug" if you're writing pulp romances.

* Learned about this trick when I _briefly_ studied basic cryptography 
as a youth. Codebreakers use these tools to crack simple 
letter-substitution codes.

The "courier" requirement is probably an overreliance on traditional 
rules of thumb that worked but that may no longer be relevant. Older 
publishing staff undoubtedly grew up using manuscript pages printed in 
courier (i.e., "typescripts" produced by typewriters) to estimate book 
lengths, passed this practical and effective rule of thumb on to their 
replacements, and the practice continued long after it was no longer 
necessary.

My take on this: The best way to estimate lengths is to do a trial 
layout: dump a sample of typical text by the author into the proposed 
layout template (or use a standard template if each book will be 
designed differently), do a quick search and replace to bring the 
styles into conformity with the template (if necessary), then see how 
many pages this takes up. Compare this to the word count for that chunk 
of text, estimate how much space each column-inch occupied by a graphic 
takes, and you've got an excellent tool for estimating how long the 
book will be.

--Geoff Hart   ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca
(try geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com if you don't get a reply)


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