Why are some books longer in America?

I'm not an expert in publishing, but why would the american version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, be 100 odd pages longer than the english? I know there are some differences between English and American English, but surley not enough to create so many more pages.

Can someone clear this up please? It's really confusing me.

Maybe it's printed in a larger font, wider margins, more leading, could be all sorts of different reasons.

[edit on 7/12/2007 by djohnsto77]

But why change those things for a county? I know in the other books the American version had extra lines in it - why add those? Why not publish the book the same way everywhere (english speaking of course, and making exceptions for the british words americans don't always know.)

Tell you what, if I can find two different versions here, which should be possible!

I'll read them both and tell you the difference!

The Harry Potter Big Finale that is!

It could simply be a change in format, or, maybe there IS that much of a difference between standard English and American English.

The UK & USA versions are published by different publishing companies. The text of the American edition is slightly edited for U.S. spelling, but I think has completely different artwork and other properties.

Having lived for four years in Britain, I can say there isn't THAT much difference between the two versions of English, that would explain such an anomaly in length.

It probably has to do with the editor. What would "work" for an English audience may not "work" the same for an American one, so the American editor requested certain changes.

It could even have to do with marketing -- if a person finds out there are two different versions between Britain and America, they might buy both versions, which makes Rowling all the richer.

I never knew that books were different from country to country, though. That is very interesting to find out.

Originally posted by ChiKeyMonKey
Tell you what, if I can find two different versions here, which should be possible!

I'll read them both and tell you the difference!

That would be great ^_^ It's puzzling me more that it should :shk:

Hopefully it's simply to do with the formatting, because if there adding extra bits in the American version I think it's very unfair - especially since J.K Rowling's english

[edit on 12/7/07 by FudgeStix]

Originally posted by MajorMalfunction
It probably has to do with the editor. What would "work" for an English audience may not "work" the same for an American one, so the American editor requested certain changes.

That may be true for some texts, even the first Harry Potter book (they even changed the title for the U.S. market), but not here.

Believe me, the text itself is essentially identical except for minor spelling changes from British to U.S. English.

The difference must come from publishing differences like I said such as font size, page size, margins, spacing, artwork differences, etc.

The American versions are published by company that basically publishes childrens books, so the fonts are bigger and the top and bottom margins are a little larger. That is going to be my guess, the spelling differences couldn't possibly account for 100 odd pages.

reply to post by FudgeStix


Becase they have to sound the words out