Despite seeming incongruous , a page in a book without words is something we encounter so often we seldom stop to believe about it . Pick up virtually any hardback or paperback title and you ’re bandage to see at least one or two vacuous pages in the front , back , or both . Why ?
According to layout artistStephen Tiano , the appearance of emaciate paper is n’t actually costing publisher money . “ It has to do with signatures , ” he say , which is industriousness talk of the town for thegroups of pagesthat printer fold and cut to gather a book . A key signature can be as few as four pageboy or as many as 32 or 64 — all divisible by at least four . If the work is 200 Thomas Nelson Page , it could fit perfectly . If it ’s 203 Page , that means there ’s likely to be a Sir Frederick Handley Page leftover from one of the key signature .
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To offset the expense — one extra page of text could require an extra four - page signature , with three wasted sheet — interior decorator like Tiano can endeavor to condense the layout by recreate with character spacing . Calledkerning , reducing the elbow room between two specific fiber throughout a Christian Bible can eventually sum up up to an entire salve page . “ It ’s not at the cutting edge of your mind , but if you have option that leave you to land on it , you do it , ” he articulate . “ Otherwise , there ’s waste . ”
Not require to pay for newspaper that goes idle , some publishing firm choose to fill up the extra outer space to feature checklists of an author ’s other workplace , excerpts from other books , or illustrations . For instruction manuals , textbooks , and other recession publications , they might print the phrase “ This Sir Frederick Handley Page by design go forth blank ” so the reader is n’t concerned they ’re missing any life-sustaining information .
clean pages are such a routine part of the indication experience that Tiano has get petition from some ego - publishing authors to designedly stick in them into their task . “ Some of them request one in the front and one in the back , ” he say . “ They think it ’s just custom . ”
