Half Title Page vs. Title Page
Arlo Finch is now typeset in preparation for the first printing run of advance reading copies (also called galleys). It’s great and weird seeing it in its almost-finished form.
At this stage, I’m looking at a PDF on my iPad. I’m making corrections—mostly small things, but also a new paragraph or two. A proofreader will also be carefully combing through it.
One bit of terminology I just learned is the difference between the two kinds of title pages you see in a book.
As you open a hardcover book, the first page with text on it is called the half title page. It has only the name of the book.
Here’s Arlo’s:
Sometimes you see a list of other books by the author on the back side of this page, or a separate page.
Next up comes the true title page, which has the title, the author, and the publisher. Here’s Arlo’s:
(Roaring Brook Press is part of Macmillan.)
The back of the title page has all of the publisher information about the book. (I’ll talk more about that in a future post.)
True confession: I never realized that hardcover novels have two title pages until today. And now I’m kind of obsessed, grabbing every book on the shelf to check. It’s that classic case of once you notice something, it’s ubiquitous—at least in American hardcover novels.
Paperback novels often forego the half title page. John Green’s Looking for Alaska has one, as does Ranson Riggs’s Hollow City (albeit a few pages in). But Victoria Aveyard’s Red Queen is more typical: a few pages of glowing reviews before the (true) title page.
Why do books have half title pages at all?
Originally, printers and book-binders were two separate businesses. The half title—also called the bastard title—served as the temporary cover of the book before it was bound.
If you’re curious to learn more, you can explore the history of the bastard title with Andrea Koczela.
