Re: Font choices. I've always been of the opinion that legibility and rhythm are the deciding factors along with size and "appropriateness" if that's the right word. Jason makes a case for Helvetica, which certainly was the font of choice for almost everything in print during the 70s when I was in the ad game. On the other hand text in Helvetica (or Arial, for that matter...) in sizes smaller than 12 point can fatigue the readers eyes as the strong vertical movement in the font makes word-flow begin to fail. Serif fonts have the added touch of the serifs (the little feet) which carry the readers eye along, improving word flow even in smaller sizes. Of course, my own readers are usually well over forty, so I set my books in twelve point minimum. Then there is the relative open-ness of the font, how many characters can line up within the column width chosen. While you can get more characters of some more condensed fonts on the line, the most comfortable number of characters the eye is capable of reading without strain hovers around 40, which means that some fonts are much too open for a given width while others much too condensed. Finding the comfortable medium is the best way to go. The whole appropriateness thing for me has to do with the apparent age and style of a font, visually. Some fonts feel more antiquated, which for some text works really well, as long as the readability isn't sacrificed completely in favor of mood. There are more modern fonts that seem to work really well in mood for speculative writing, etc. Then there are screen versus print fonts, which have to do with specific hinting and nuancing done by the font designer to aid in word flow particular to the medium. It all gets pretty tangled up academically, so I often will just find a similar, popular book for the same niche reader and see what the publisher's designer chose font-wise. They don't get it wrong often. There. that's my spiel.