We’ve changed the binding for the fourth edition of A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting.
This might seem a trivial matter, but the binding was enough of an issue for me to ask readers about it in this 2008 post, and in 2014 I did this post about Amazon reviews objecting to the binding.
The slight first edition was a paperback. The second edition started out as a paperback and shifted to Wire-O binding. The third edition used Wire-O binding and a bigger format. The fourth edition is too big for Wire-O binding, so we’re going hardback, baby! That way, the book will stay open when lying flat on a table, without the spine ultimately breaking. So we have the key feature offered by Wire-O binding, without the floppy, flimsy cover.
And not any old hardback binding—we’re using casewrap binding. The cover artwork is incorporated into the binding, so there’s no annoying dust jacket.
Know who does the binding?
I’m afraid I have no idea. Would you like me to ask?
Don’t trouble yourself. I’ll find out when I get the copy.
Sounds as if the hardback binding is going to be necessary, particularly if it is going to see daily use. But does it increase the cost?
Have you considered if there might be scope for a shorter, more compact version, in paperback?
As I noted in the post immediately before this one, casewrap binding is more expensive. But there’s no alternative.
And yes, I expect to publish with the ABA sometime next year a shorter book called Drafting Clearer Contracts: A Concise Style Guide for Organizations. That’s sometime I discuss in the introduction to the fourth edition.