The paper for Still Waters took three months to select. Three months of requesting samples, holding pages up to different light sources, running test prints, debating opacity and texture with an intensity that, I’m aware, might seem absurd to anyone outside of publishing. The author asked me at one point if we could just pick one and move on. I told her no. The paper is not a detail. The paper is half the experience.

I realize that most readers don’t consciously think about paper. You pick up a book, you open it, you read the words. The paper is just the surface the words are printed on. But here’s what I’ve come to understand after years of making books: paper communicates. It communicates below the level of conscious attention, in the way that the acoustics of a room shape how you hear music without you thinking about the ceiling height. The weight of the page between your fingers, the way it reflects or absorbs light, the sound it makes when you turn it, the way ink sits on its surface, all of these things contribute to the reading experience in ways that are difficult to articulate but impossible to ignore once you start paying attention.

At ScrollWorks, paper selection is one of the earliest decisions we make in the production process, and it’s one of the most time-consuming. We don’t have a standard paper that we use for every book. Each title gets its own assessment based on the genre, the length, the aesthetic goals, and the practical constraints of budget and availability. I want to walk through how that process works, because I think it reveals something interesting about the physical side of bookmaking that gets overlooked in an increasingly digital industry.

The first consideration is always the type of book. Fiction and non-fiction have different paper needs, and within those categories, the specific character of the work matters enormously. A literary novel that aims for an intimate, contemplative reading experience wants a different paper than a fast-paced thriller. A book of essays that a reader might dip in and out of over months has different demands than a novel designed to be consumed in a weekend. These aren’t just aesthetic preferences. They’re functional decisions that affect how the book feels in the reader’s hands and how long it lasts on their shelf.

Let me get specific about what we actually evaluate when we’re choosing paper.

Weight, measured in pounds or grams per square meter (gsm), is the most basic characteristic. For trade paperbacks, we typically work in the range of 50 to 80 lb text weight, which translates to roughly 74 to 118 gsm. Lighter papers make for a thinner, more portable book, but they can feel flimsy and they’re more likely to show through, meaning you can see the text on the reverse side of the page when you’re reading. Heavier papers feel more substantial and luxurious, but they add bulk and weight, which increases shipping costs and can make a long book uncomfortably thick.

For The Last Archive, which runs about 320 pages, we went with a 60 lb uncoated text stock. It’s light enough to keep the book from feeling like a brick, but heavy enough that the pages feel solid and the show-through is minimal. For a shorter book like Echoes of Iron, we could afford to go slightly heavier at 70 lb, giving the book a more substantial feel that compensates for its modest page count. These seem like small decisions, and in a sense they are. But holding the finished books, you can feel the difference immediately.

Opacity is related to weight but isn’t the same thing. A paper’s opacity refers to how much light passes through it, and it’s affected by the paper’s composition and coating as well as its thickness. Low-opacity paper creates distracting show-through, where you can see a ghost of the text from the other side of the page bleeding through. This is one of those things that, once you notice it, you can’t un-notice. Some cheap paperbacks have such poor opacity that reading them is like trying to concentrate while someone whispers behind you. It’s not quite bad enough to make you stop, but it’s always there, pulling at the edge of your attention.

We test opacity by printing a sample page on each candidate paper and then holding it up to a bright window. If I can read the reverse side of the text, the paper fails. Simple as that. Good book paper should have an opacity of at least 92 percent, and we prefer 95 or higher.

Color is another major factor, and this is where things get surprisingly subjective. Paper comes in a range of whites, from bright blue-white to warm cream, and the choice has a significant impact on the reading experience. Bright white paper is crisp and clean, and it creates high contrast with black text. It’s also, in my opinion, harsh and tiring to read for extended periods, like having a conversation in a room with fluorescent lighting. Cream or natural white paper has a warmer tone that’s easier on the eyes and gives the book a more traditional, literary feel.

We lean heavily toward natural whites and creams at ScrollWorks. This is a deliberate choice that reflects our aesthetic priorities. Our books are meant to be read slowly, lived with, returned to. The warm paper invites that kind of engagement in a way that bright white doesn’t. There are exceptions, though. If a book has interior illustrations or photographs, we might need a brighter white to ensure accurate color reproduction. And some genres, particularly science fiction and contemporary thrillers, sometimes benefit from the cleaner, more modern feel of a brighter stock.

Texture is where paper selection becomes genuinely personal and, I’ll admit, a little obsessive. Paper can be smooth (calendered), slightly rough (vellum finish), or noticeably textured (laid or linen). Each finish interacts differently with ink and creates a different tactile experience. Smooth paper is the most versatile and produces the sharpest text reproduction. It’s the safe choice. Vellum finish has a slight tooth to it, a barely perceptible roughness that I find pleasurable to touch and that gives the page a handmade quality. Laid paper has visible lines running through it, a traditional look that connects to the history of papermaking but that can feel pretentious if overused.

For most of our books, we use a vellum or smooth uncoated stock. The specific choice depends on the character of the book. When we were producing The Cartographer’s Dilemma, the author and I spent an afternoon comparing three different vellum finishes side by side. They were almost identical, honestly. An untrained hand probably couldn’t have told them apart. But the middle sample had a grain that felt slightly more intentional, more considered, and it complemented the meticulous quality of the writing. We went with that one. Was the difference worth the extra $200 it cost for the print run? Probably not in any measurable sense. But making books is an accumulation of decisions like that, and the sum of those decisions is what separates a book that feels thoughtfully made from one that feels like it was assembled by default.

I should talk about practical constraints, because this isn’t all aesthetic reverie. Paper costs money, and paper costs have been volatile in recent years. Supply chain disruptions that started during the pandemic, combined with mill closures and consolidation in the paper industry, have pushed prices up and availability down. There have been times in the past two years when our preferred paper stock simply wasn’t available, and we had to scramble to find an acceptable substitute on a tight production timeline. The romance of paper selection bumps up against the reality of “this mill is backordered for four months” pretty regularly.

Environmental considerations also factor in, increasingly so. Most of the paper we use is either FSC-certified (meaning it comes from responsibly managed forests) or made with a significant percentage of post-consumer recycled content. We made a commitment several years ago to move away from virgin fiber wherever possible, and we’ve been able to source recycled papers that meet our quality standards for most applications. The recycled stocks have gotten much better in recent years. Five years ago, recycled book paper had a grayish tint and inconsistent texture that made it a compromise. Today, the best recycled stocks are nearly indistinguishable from virgin fiber in appearance and feel.

The printing method matters too, because different papers interact differently with different printing technologies. We use offset printing for most of our runs, which tends to produce the best results on uncoated papers. Digital printing, which we use for short runs and print-on-demand titles, requires papers that can handle toner adhesion, and not every beautiful offset paper works well in a digital press. This means we sometimes have to compromise, choosing a paper that works adequately with both printing methods rather than one that’s optimal for just one.

Bulk and spine width are considerations that connect paper choice directly to the book’s visual identity. The spine of a book is the only part that’s visible on a shelf, and its width is determined by the paper. A 300-page book printed on 50 lb stock will have a noticeably thinner spine than the same book on 70 lb stock. This affects whether the title and author name can be printed legibly on the spine, which in turn affects the cover design. I’ve seen situations where a switch from one paper weight to another required the entire cover to be redesigned because the spine text no longer fit. Paper choice, cover design, and printing are all interconnected, and changing one variable ripples through the others.

There’s also the question of longevity. Acid-free paper resists yellowing and deterioration over time, while acidic paper (common in cheap mass-market paperbacks) will become brittle and discolored within a few decades. Every book we publish uses acid-free stock, because we’d like our books to be readable in fifty years, not just five. This is a small additional cost that most readers never think about, but it reflects a commitment to the idea that a book is a permanent object, not a disposable one.

I’ve been asked whether any of this actually affects sales. The honest answer is: probably not directly. No one has ever told me they bought a book because of the paper it was printed on. But I believe, with some conviction, that it affects the reading experience in ways that ultimately translate to word-of-mouth and repeat readership. A reader who finishes a book and thinks, “That was a beautiful object to hold,” even if they can’t quite articulate why, is a reader who is more likely to seek out other books from the same publisher. They associate the physical experience with the emotional experience of the story, and both get remembered together.

I think about paper the way a chef thinks about ingredients. You can make a perfectly adequate meal with commodity ingredients, and most diners won’t know the difference. But there’s a pleasure in sourcing the good olive oil, the right flour, the tomatoes that actually taste like tomatoes. The meal is better for it, even if the improvement is subtle, and the care that went into the sourcing is itself a kind of respect for the people you’re feeding. Our readers deserve that respect. The authors who trusted us with their manuscripts deserve it. And the physical book, this remarkable technology that has been delivering human thought for centuries, deserves it too.

The next time you pick up a book, try this: before you start reading, close your eyes and just feel the pages. Run your thumb across the surface. Notice the weight. Open the book and put your nose in the gutter (the crease where the pages meet the spine) and breathe in. Good paper has a smell, a clean, slightly sweet smell that is one of the most underrated sensory pleasures in the world. That smell, that texture, that weight, someone chose them. Someone spent three months holding samples up to the light and deciding that this paper, not that one, was the right home for these particular words. I think that’s worth knowing about.