What factors should guide my decision on adding extra inside margins when preparing a book for perfect binding?

I'm working on a book that will be perfectly bound. It's a budget job, so I'm using an online service with little/no communications with the printer and no opportunity for a proof.

As far as I'm aware, I need to add inside margin for two reasons:

  1. Because the inside margin will be curved inwards, leaving less horizontal space because of horizontal compression due to foreshortening.
  2. Because some of the page will be lost to the binding.

My book is 120mm x 192mm and I have allowed margins at:

  • Inside: 19mm
  • Outside: 14mm

I have tried printing off a stack of pages and this feels like the right amount, but I don't want to get caught out.

Incidentally, the book is a poetry book with the text on each page left aligned and centred on the longest line. I'm using inDesign which means I need to do the centring manually, so baking uneven margins into my page makes the centring really tricky.

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