Crowfield Spellbook Update #1

At the end of December, I talked about my plan to write spellbook for Crowfield. 

The first part of the plan was to write-up all the converted spells.  I set a deadline of late March for that.  Fortunately, the Swords & Wizardry writes-ups were amazing, and I'm now done.

The next steps:

• Make a second pass through the spells.  About midway through I switched from giving ranges and areas of effect in feet (and yards) to giving it in "squares."  (A square is a square on the map or battle grid, representing 10 feet or 10 yards depending if it's an indoor or outdoor map.  See last week's post.)
• Write up the first chapter ("how to use this book" type of information).
• Formatting/layout.
• Begging friends to proof-read.
• Publish!

I'm setting a deadline of the end of February to finish writing the first chapter.

Layout Question

For the first bit, I was just worried about getting the content onto the paper.  Now I'm thinking ahead and wondering what the final product should look like.  Specifically, should it be 8.5" x 11" (letter size) or 5.5" x 8.5" (digest size)?  In other words, one is the size of a "normal" (American) piece of paper, and the other is the size of that same piece of paper folded in half.

Basic Fantasy (left) is letter size and WhiteBox (right) is digest size)

Because letter format is the same size as printer paper, it has the advantage that it's easy to print at home. If someone downloads the books and and wants to print a quick copy, they can. They still could with digest, but there would be huge margins.

On the other hand, I really want to make this book available as Print-on-Demand.  At letter size, I think the book will be around 32 pages, which is mighty thin.  If the digest-size version comes in at 64-ish pages, it will still be thin, but at least it will look like it should be bound instead of paper-clipped.

Before someone suggests it, I do not want two formats!  For one thing, it's twice the work.  For another, it gets awkward to reference things. "Well, it's page 24 in my book, but you have the other printing, so maybe near page 50?"

I would love to hear your thoughts!