The size of the book will depend on the press it is printed on. Where I worked for a few years, we were primarily 6x9 (inches), but that was sheetfed. Big runs on a web press will be different, and you need to find out what press size will be used, as they can't change the cutoffs, and prices really jump when you have to trim about 30% of the paper as waste because your book was a half inch too big for the press used.

Can you find out who will be printing it, or the probable quoters?

550,000 words? Way too big; get them to do a re-write. Cut the modifiers. Something.

In addition to Don's suggestion, you need to consider the subject area, the kind and number of illustrations, the amount of color, and the audience. I'm guessing that at 550,000 words this is for well-educated users who can read well. Is it pretty specialized? Also consider run length. If it is a long run, Don's probably right that it will be web printed.

Surely there must be some models out there you can look at.

As an aside:
In the good old USA there are national standards for design & production of public school textbooks. Administered by the National Association of State Textbook Administrators / NASTA. These are largely driven by standards set by some of the biggest states, like California. I have heard textbook designers comment about the large pain in the butt it can be to deal with these standards. But meet them they must.

http://www.nasta.org/

I've not done textbook design, but I consulted with our state history team when they did our new state history textbook a few years ago. My colleague who ran that project has this to say about the NASTA website:

"Their website isn't particularly user-friendly (or professional-looking), but this is the organization that set the guidelines we followed for "Northern Lights"--kerning, line spacing, etc., for various grade levels. Those specifications came to us via the design firm we used in Texas, rather than from NASTA directly."

have fun

powers

Thanks guys,

It's a short-run textbook (around 1000 initially) I would imagine it will be printed on a sheetfed press. In my quote request to my printer, I've asked them to suggest a better size then the one I'm running with as my working size (245mmx185mm) (I just went to the library and measured up a bunch of textbooks, that seems like a good size for a big book)

As to length: It is largely for a specialized well educated group of people and it's designed to be a comprehensive Bible type of thing. Thanks for the NASTA suggestion, I'll definitely have a look
cheers

--N

Make it big enough to use as a hard surface when writing (I work in bed a lot).

At 1000, you will be looking at sheet feed or digital press options. Web is not very efficient at this sum length.

Back to the 550,000 words. Do some tests with your sample pages and try to forecast a page count +/-5%. Then check with the printer and see if the book will be of reasonable size. It is very difficult to bind books thicker than 3 inches (and equally hard to read them.)

For marketing and financial reasons, you should consider making the book a series of three volumes. The benefits are: a) you only have to get a third of the book finished at a time (to production stage, you will want the whole thing written); b) production is facilitated when the editor is working on part 3, the layout person is on part 2, and part 1 is on the press; c) you can start selling part 1 while you are still working on parts 2 and 3, getting some money in to finance the rest of the work; d) you can probably price the books higher in aggregate than you can for a single volume (particularly if the parts are coming out in different fiscal years for the purchasing libraries).

Look at other books in the same discipline. The industry treats each discipline differently.

Norton anthology has a small trim size for page count, but it is a nice size to sit on your lap between classes.

Janson or Gardners have a large trim size and pretty much require a desk.

Also consider the Instructors Manual and other items that may be packaged with the book, including consumable workbooks.

Thanks again.

Regarding the three volumes, the thought had crossed my mind in relation to size but your financial-based and practical suggestions are very interesting. I guessed the spine width at around 50mm (apx 2inches) which from looking at other textbooks seems pretty acceptable.

I actually had Norton's in my head as I was thinking about big paperback books; somehow this really works and is nice to read, it must be due to the Bible-style thin paper I reckon. At the moment I'm using a fairly standard sociology textbook as something of a template.
thanks for those suggestions, I could'nt find much out at NASTA, I did find out how much a textbook should weigh in the State of California for kindergarten students: 3lbs
cheers

--N