Trim Sizes, Margins and White Space: Designing Readable Self-Published Books Without Breaking the Bank
Pick up a book you love and notice how calm the pages feel. Your eyes settle. Lines sit where they should. Chapters open with a little ceremony and then get out of the way. That ease is designed. Interior pages matter just as much as (if not more than) your cover, and they shape both the reading experience and your printing bill. This blog is going to show you how to make simple, industry-informed choices about trim size, margins, and white space so your book reads well without costing more than it has to.
A bit about me: I’m Michael Pietrobon, founder of Foglio Custom Book Specialists. We help Canadian and international indie authors turn manuscripts into market-ready books with thoughtful Formatting and Typesetting, Cover Design, and eBook Design and Validation. We care about beauty, but we also care about unit cost, page count, and the practical details that go into a smooth book launch.
What is trim size?
First up is trim size. It might sound like a highly technical term, but I promise it’s very straightforward. Trim size is the final width and height of your book after the printer cuts the sheets. In trade paperbacks, you’ll see sizes like 5 × 8 inches, 5.5 × 8.5 inches, and 6 × 9 inches most often. Your choice changes how many words fit on a page, how thick the spine will be, and how much you pay to print and ship each copy.
Let your goal guide the size. A compact novel at 5 × 8 feels intimate in the hand and suits literary fiction. A thriller or memoir at 5.5 × 8.5 sits between cozy and roomy. General non-fiction at 6 × 9 gains breathing room for headings, sidebars, and the odd figure without cramping the text. If you are building a how-to book with charts or worksheets, consider 7 × 10 or 8 × 10 so information and notes can live together without crowding.
In Canada, it also pays to choose sizes that print well on local POD lines. Amazon KDP and IngramSpark both support 5.5 × 8.5 and 6 × 9 with steady paper options in Canada. Sticking to these keeps pricing predictable and turnarounds faster. If you want a deeper dive on size and paper options, read our guide, Choosing the Right Trim Size and Paper. If you’re still weighing production paths, this breakdown helps too: Print-on-Demand vs. Offset Printing in Canada, and here’s our overview of Print-on-Demand.
A quick cost note. A well-tuned 6 × 9 layout often reduces page count compared to the same text at 5.5 × 8.5, provided you set type and margins with care. Fewer pages can lower your POD price for the life of the book.
Setting margins for readability
Margins are the quiet frame around your words. There are four of them: top, bottom, outer, and the gutter on the spine side. Generous margins are calming, which by definition bight mean that tight margins can make a spread look and feel overwhelming. Bad margins chew letters in the fold or push text against the edge, while generous margins prevent a page of text from looking like an onerous task.
Margin width affects cost because it can change page count. Think about it: very wide margins mean fewer words per page and more pages overall, which pushes up the print price. Very narrow margins lower the page count but make the book tiring to read and can fail printer checks. The sweet spot is smaller than most word-processor defaults and larger than most DIY templates. If you’re not sure where that sweet spot is for your project, we can tune it for you as part of our Formatting and Typesetting service.
Different genres might require different frames. A novel can live with modest outer margins and a tidy top. An illustrated cookbook or reference title needs more outer space so captions and figures don’t feel pinned to the edge. Poetry is practically always formatted with a bit more space at the outer and bottom edges to accommodate line breaks and pauses.
Mastering white space
White space is not wasted space. It rests the eye, marks transitions, and points to what matters. It also changes your costs if you use it without intent.
Focus on rhythm more than emptiness. In long-form body text, use a first-line indent to mark new paragraphs and avoid blank lines between them. Keep line spacing, or leading, in a range that supports reading without stretching pages. Around 13 to 14 points of leading for an 11-point face is a common place to start, but the proof will tell you what looks best for your font and your measure. Let chapter openers breathe, but don’t stack extra emptiness in the name of drama. A small lift before the first line or a calm drop cap does the job.
Watch for widows and orphans. Single words stranded at the end of a paragraph and lonely lines at the top or bottom of a page pull readers out of the flow. Use your hyphenation and tracking tools to bring them home. A few tiny adjustments across a chapter will solve most of these moments without anyone noticing the work.
If you want a picture in your head, imagine two pages of the same text. One page has generous margins, loose leading, and blank lines between paragraphs. It feels airy but wears thin after a chapter and adds dozens of pages to the book. The other page has balanced margins, clean indents, tuned leading, and proper hyphenation. It feels calm and costs less to print.
Typography and alignment basics
You don’t need a degree in type design to make good choices. A handful of steady habits will carry you a long way.
Choose a proven serif for long reading and set it at a size that feels easy on paper. Eleven points is a strong default for many trade faces. Some fonts run large or small, so trust your proof more than the number on screen. Pair the size with leading that lets letters breathe without drifting apart. Keep spacing steady. Use one space after periods, not two. Build paragraph and character styles so headings, body text, quotes, and captions look the same every time.
For alignment, justified text with smart hyphenation will usually look most like a trade book. If rivers appear, tighten hyphenation a little and adjust tracking in tiny amounts to close the gaps. If the book is a workbook or a guide with lots of short lines, left-aligned can be the better choice. Use emphasis with a light hand. Bold and italics are tools, not decoration.
If you want to see how style systems build trust from page one, this post shows our approach in detail: The Unparalleled Joy of House Styles in Book Design.
Reading comfort and printing cost live together
Every decision you make about the page moves two dials at once. One dial is comfort. The other is cost.
Trim size changes line length and page count. Moving from 5.5 × 8.5 to 6 × 9 gives each line a little more room and can reduce total pages if you keep margins and leading in balance. Margins change how many words fit on a page. Shaving a few millimetres on the outer margin and tightening the top a touch can save pages with no pain, but shaving too far will tire the reader and may not pass preflight. Type size and leading move the dials too. Dropping from 12-point to 11-point and rebalancing the leading often reduces page count by a meaningful amount without hurting comfort. The exact savings depend on the font and the text, but the proof will tell you the truth.
Here is a simple example. An 80,000-word novel set at 5.5 × 8.5 with 12-point type and loose leading might land near 360 pages. The same text at 6 × 9 with a clear 11-point face, tuned leading, and balanced margins may land closer to 300 pages and read better. On POD platforms that charge by page, those saved pages turn into dollars copy after copy.
There isn’t one perfect recipe. The point is to test two or three tuned layouts and judge them on paper, not on a laptop screen.
Practical setup that works in the real world
You can get to a clean interior in Word, Google Docs, Affinity Publisher, or Adobe InDesign. The software matters less than your method.
If you draft in Word or Google Docs, keep the file clean. Use styles for headings and body text. Remove extra returns and double spaces. Do not stack blank lines to push content down a page. When the manuscript is stable, move the text to a layout tool or pass it to a professional typesetter. Word can produce an acceptable PDF in a pinch, but it will fight you on things like hyphenation, orphans, and consistent spacing.
If you build in InDesign or Affinity Publisher, start the document at your exact trim with facing pages turned on. Set sensible inner and outer margins and a generous gutter based on your expected page count. Build master pages for running heads and folios so you don’t place them by hand. Make paragraph and character styles for everything you will use. Turn on hyphenation with rules that suit your font. Place images at 300 dpi at final size and style captions so they line up from chapter to chapter. When you export, embed fonts, include bleeds where needed, and run a preflight.
Always order a physical proof from your POD provider before you go live. Screens lie. Paper tells the truth. Read a few chapters like a reader. Flip back and forth through spreads that have images. Check the gutter, the page numbers, the rhythm of headings, and the feel of the margins. If you are printing with Amazon KDP or IngramSpark, this step is fast and cheap and will save you from small mistakes that irritate readers.
If you’d rather write and let a team build the interior, that’s what we do every day. We match your layout to your genre, your cover, and your reader, and we prepare press-ready files for the printer or POD platform you choose. You can learn more here: Formatting and Typesetting. If you are still deciding between POD and offset, start here: Print-on-Demand and this overview of Print-on-Demand vs. Offset in Canada.
Read more and learn the rules
If you want extra background on page anatomy and layout terms, Reedsy’s guide to book layout is a helpful primer. For a frank look at how production choices affect budget, FriesenPress has practical articles on cost. If you publish in Canada, make sure you know your obligations for legal deposit with Library and Archives Canada. You can find their requirements on the LAC site and plan your post-launch steps while you are still in layout.
You can also keep going on our blog:
Closing thoughts
Readable pages don’t happen by accident. Choose a trim size that fits your genre and goals. Set margins that protect the spine and give the text room to breathe. Use white space with intent. Tune your type so sentences flow. Do those few things well, and your book will be easier to love and cheaper to print.
If you want a partner to set up your layout, test proofs, and protect your budget from start to finish, explore our Formatting and Typesetting service. If you are ready to talk through your project, we’re happy to help you plan the smartest path.
