How to Create a Title Page for Your Paperback Book?

You will probably spend a lot of time thinking about your over design when you are creating a paperback book with a perfect binding, but you might not put as much thought into the next page that your readers will see. The title page is easy to overlook as it seems so simple, but getting it right is just as important as the other decisions you’ll make when you’re printing books in London.

What Should You Include?

The title is naturally the main feature of the title page, but there is other information that you may need to include too. A title page for a perfect binding book will often include:

• The full title plus any subtitles
• Names of the author, the editor for an anthology, and the illustrator, photographer, or translator if applicable
• Year of publication
• Name and location of publisher (usually at the city level e.g. London)
• The edition number (often not included in first editions

Illustrations

In addition to all of the essential information about the book, you might also want to add an illustration or other special features to the title page. For example, you could add little motifs to separate or frame parts of the text.

Formatting

You can be fairly creative with your title page as you will have lots of space for a relatively small amount of text. It can be a good idea to:

• Use different text sizes for different parts of the text, with the title in the largest font.
• Centre align the text.
• Use the full height and width of the page (within the margins) and spread out the text so that it doesn’t appear cramped.
• Remember that the book is unlikely to be placed flat on a table when you choose perfect binding, so design your title page to be held at an angle and don’t place any text too close to the crease.

However, if you are going to break the rules or experiment with fonts, images or special effects, the title page is often the place to do it. Just make sure that the design fits with the tone of the book and works well with the cover design.