So, what’s your angle?

With a new book coming out, people are going to want to know – and we’re not talking about price points or plot twists.

We’re talking about orientation.

Whether you’re a publisher or an author, determining how readers will hold and view your book is a huge decision. Your basic options – portrait and landscape – are actually anything but mundane. What’s the difference between them? It’s important to take a look at the pros and cons of each so that you can make an informed decision about which style best suits your book.

Portrait Printing

Portrait is when the book is taller than it is wide. Think of a standard paperback novel. This style works well for fiction, biographies, history books, and other narrative nonfiction. It makes text easier to read while allowing more room on the page for larger text sizes and wider margins. This is ideal for readers who may need larger font sizes due to age-related issues or visual impairments.

Perhaps the biggest benefit of portrait printing is that it simply takes up less space than landscape printing, making it easier to store on shelves. It also fits more comfortably in readers’ hands as they flip through the pages and adheres to our natural inclination to hold a book vertically. On the downside, however, portrait printing puts certain limits on creativity and design as there is far less room for visuals or illustrations.

Landscape Printing

Landscape, then, means your book will be wider than it is tall. Picture a coffee table book or an art portfolio. This style works best for image-heavy tomes, such as photography books, fully illustrated children’s stories, portfolios, cookbooks, and travel guides filled with maps or diagrams.

Because it offers more space on each page, that often equates to fewer pages overall, which could lead to production savings in production.

Landscape printing allows for more creative freedom as you design your book. With a horizontal layout to work with, there is plenty of room for visuals and illustrations on the page, without things being crowded or cluttered. Landscape orientation is far more flexible when it comes to displaying charts, graphs, and infographics without having them run off the side of the page.

At the same time, however, this larger size makes storing these types of books somewhat of a challenge. (But, hey, that’s why coffee tables were invented.)

As with many decisions regarding your book printing project, deciding between portrait and landscape orientation will depend entirely on what type of book you’re producing and how much creative freedom you want and need when designing its layout.

Illustration and/or photo-heavy books lend themselves naturally to landscape printing. However, if you’ve written a traditional chapter book that is predominantly text, portrait is probably the way to go.

At Gasch Printing, our team has the capabilities to print books of different shapes, sizes, styles, and specifications, including portrait and landscape formats, as well as square. And Depending on the bind style, we make books as small as 4.5 x 6.0” and as large as 12.0 x 12.0.” Get a quote online or contact our team to learn more.