Why do books always seem to have one or two blank pages at the beginning/end?

Answer 1

All of these answers are not exactly correct. I worked as an assistant production manager for a printer in NYC for 8 years. Let me fill you in.

Books are printed on very large sheets of flat paper - not rolls. Newspaper is printed on rolls of paper. Sheets to print books are either 25x38 or 30x40.

But first, the book pages are printed out on negative film and the pages are set up - some right side up, some upside down - by a person called a stripper.

Then they use the film to make the printing plates and print them on a large press like a Heidelberg. The reason for the strange order is the way the cutting and folding machine works so they come out in the right order. God forbid the stripper makes a mistake and one piece of film is in the wrong direction. You will have upside down pages.

Each large printed sheet is 16 pages. It is called a "signature". If you take a paperback book and hold it by the spine, letting the pages fan open, you will see the little clumps of pages it forms. Each clump is 16 pages - one signature.

They are stacked one on top of the other and when they are all together, they are bound with a method called perfect binding.

So books are always in multiples of 16 pages. If the writing falls short, there will be extra pages in the front or back. If the book ends exactly on a multiple of 16, there won't be.

Therefore, most children's picture books are 48 pages - 3x16. The next multiple up would be 64 pages - and so on.

Pax - C

Answer 2

Blank Book Page

Answer 3

Persephone has given a great answer. I'll add to it a little: I worked for two summers at a place where they recovered textbooks. The bindings of the old cover were cut off, then the stacks of pages were sent to the end sheeting table. A blank end sheet was placed at the front and back of each book. The outer edge of this end sheet had a glue strip that would be activated when it got wet. Next, all the pages of the book were sent to a sewer, who ran them through a set of small double wheels that placed a thin line of watery glue at the edge of the pages, a few pages at a time. Each bunch of pages was then placed on a stack inside the sewing machine, and the operator stepped on a pedal to sew those pages into the book. The blank end pages were much thicker paper, and once the glue on them was activated, they helped make the sewing of the binding more sturdy and they also helped hold the new cover onto the book more securely.

Answer 4

have you ever seen a roll of paper or unfolded a newspaper? you know how the paper is very large and they cut it to fit? well, that's how a book is too. If you fold in an equal half, one piece of 9 X12 inch paper what do you get? You get 4 book pages with writing on front and back. However after the Title page, and the Dedication page and the page for the printing rights and American library of congress number and so forth at the front of the book those pieces of paper that are folded end up as blank pages in the back of some books. Does that make logical sense to you? Conversely, when a book has a glossary or explainations of footnotes or end notes pages in the back of a book that often results in blank pages at the beginning of a book. So, it all comes out to using just the right number of pages for the printed words, and extra pages cannot be trimmed because they are necessary to hold the bindings for the corresponding pages that are folded opposite the blank pages.

Answer 5

Because books are printed on blotters and not in the order you read them. Several pages are printed at once but they are laid out as four parts of a larger page, then four more pages, then four more. When they are assembled, they are actually in order. Since they are printed four at a time, blank pages are common.
Hemingway is said to have loved this and insisted his last page to be mostly blank with maybe a line or two, to add to the despair.

Answer 6

Some people find it amusing and they like writing notes on it. But the real reason is because of some printing thing.

Answer 7

so when you run out of rolling papers you can use those