The Building of a Book A Series of Practical Articles Written by Experts in the Various Departments of Book Making and Distributing

With these advances in the art of cover decoration came the demand for the more delicate tints and richer shades of the colors, and as a result finer colors than could be produc...

The type is now handed over to the "make-up," and inasmuch as his work must be carefully revised by the proof-reader, we may describe it here. Having first of all made a gauge s...

When the customer brings the book to the binder, the style of binding, color of the leather, amount and kind of ornamentation, and all the other details are determined upon and...

The commercial traveller who sells books has no fault to find with the people with whom he deals. By the very nature of his calling the bookseller is a man of reading and cultur...

Strips of wood, called "furniture," are then used to fill up the spaces between the blocks, care being taken to see that all the backs, fronts, and heads are in uniform position...

The screens used in making half-tones represent an enormous outlay in the large shops. A comparatively small screen costs in the neighborhood of $100. A screen 18 × 20, ruled 12...

The lithographer now has before him the ten stones, each stamped with the identical network of lines in red chalk representing his key. He proceeds to draw each color-plate succ...

The artist cannot tease the mind with the vague influence of description, as can the author, nor can he veil his products with the pleasing glamour of unreality. Without haze hi...

As the books come in they are carefully looked over by the one who is known as the "critic" of the review or paper. He has men and women on his lists whose pens he has tried bef...

Though for more than half a century machines adapted for the setting of type have been in use, it is only within a few years that the average printer of books has been enabled t...

Only the author or his assignee (_i.e._ the proprietor) may secure copyright in a book. An author may transfer orally all or part of his rights before publication, but after pub...

When the type-bed and the frisket carrying the sheet of paper were in position under the platen, the latter was drawn downward to make the impression by means of a "toggle" join...

The agent can also be of use to the author because he looks at any manuscript in an objective rather than in a subjective way. The author, who has toiled and striven over the ch...

The ink is made of fine bone dust, vegetable or other form of carbon, which has been carefully cleansed from foreign matter and ground to the necessary fineness in combination w...

In the evolution of the printing press there are three sharply defined stages: first, the flat impression surface and the flat printing surface, requiring the exertion of all of...

After several sets of F-proofs have been taken, the form is carried to the moulding or "battery" room of the electrotyping department, where it leaves its perfect impress in the...

Doctors violently disagree over book advertising principles, and possibly it is best to start by saying that there _are_ none and that each book is a rule unto itself. Certainly...

There were four others the titles of which I do not recall; but the two mentioned made an impression on my mind, because I had read the first one only a short time before; and k...

The design for a new style of type is made generally with pen and ink, the capital letters being drawn about an inch high and the others in predetermined proportions. When the d...

So far as can be traced, the earliest known book auctions took place in Holland. The library of Marnix of St. Aldegonde was sold by Christopher Poret at Leyden, July 6, 1599, th...

"The Building of a Book" had its origin in the wish to give practical, non-technical information to readers and lovers of books. I hope it will also be interesting and valuable...

All this calls for little but quick and discriminating observation,--the ability to feel and read the public pulse in matters literary. It is in regard to the second and more im...