Tuesday 8 February 2011

Hidden Masters' Pocket Book of Tarot


The first edition before resizing
I've just reformatted the Hidden Masters' Pocket Book of Tarot. I'm in the process of moving my books over to a new small press which will allow me to be much more hands off and concentrate on just writing. The current format of the Pocket Book of Tarot is 90 x 140mm.

The blurb describes it thus: "Everything you ever wanted to know about Tarot but couldn't be bothered to ask. Well bother no more as this book gives it to you straight and simple in handy reference form, ideal for the beginner of the forgetful expert alike. Keep it with you when you are impressing your friends, so that when ignorance strikes you can just nip off to the loo or sneak under the table for that elusive definition." I suspect it's the world's only Tarot book with jokes.

However, the new publisher can't do books as small as that so it's going to be 127 x 203mm, about half again as wide and tall and almost twice the area. It was about 80 pages with all the front and back blurb but now it'll be about 50 pages.

So the question is can I still legitimately call it the Hidden Masters' Pocket Book of Tarot? It'll certainly be thin enough to go in a pocket but it'll have to be a bigger pocket than on the back of my jeans. I'm wondering if I should call it the Hidden Masters Little Pamphlet of Tarot and Joke Book. Not so snappy eh?

More about the book here

You can still buy the first edition here - buy it while it's still small enough for your pocket! Just £3.99

4 comments:

  1. I've just had an idea. Call it the "Hidden Masters' (not quite) Pocket Book of Tarot" with the 'not quite' done as a crayon mark-up on the cover. Sort of goes with the whole flippancy of the Hidden Masters series.

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  2. I like your crayon mark-up idea. But you'd have to explain it to new readers..?

    I always liked the 'pocket book' nature of it (like the old 'I Spy' books) - though sadly it's small size has meant my copy has got itself lost... :(

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  3. Sure, I take your point. I think I've seen this sort of thing used before but I can't think where. We'd probably have a publishing history page that would list the first edition. Otherwise I reckon people are bright enough to realise that it's a book that fits in your pocket or at least almost does. At the end of the day they'll see it as a book of tarot and the title won't really matter. Hopefully. :o)

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