Open a hardback from a traditional publisher and the first printed page is not the title page. It is a nearly empty right-hand page with the title of the book on it — no subtitle, no author, no publisher — and nothing else. That is the half title. It is also called the bastard title, a name that has nothing to do with quality and everything to do with the page being, historically, a bit of an orphan.
What it is
The half title is the first page of the book block: a recto, carrying the main title only, set smaller than on the title page. Its back, the verso, is usually blank, or carries the "also by this author" list, or a frontispiece illustration facing the title page.
Then comes the title page proper — title, subtitle, author, imprint — with the copyright page on its reverse.
So the opening of a book runs:
| Page | Side | Content |
|---|---|---|
| i | recto | Half title — the title alone |
| ii | verso | Blank, or "also by", or frontispiece |
| iii | recto | Title page |
| iv | verso | Copyright page |
| v | recto | Dedication |
Those roman numerals are real: front matter is numbered in lower-case roman, even when the numbers are not printed, which is why the first chapter of a novel begins on something like page 1 but the physical page is the ninth or eleventh leaf.
Where it came from
Books were once sold as unbound sheets and bound by the buyer. The half title was the outermost printed page of the block, and its job was to protect the title page and identify the sheets while they waited for a binder. Once covers and dust jackets took over that job the half title had nothing left to do, and stayed anyway, because a book that opened straight onto its title page felt abrupt.
That is the whole justification today. It is a beat of quiet before the book starts. Publishers keep it because it reads as "book"; the reader's eye expects a page of almost nothing before the page of something.
Half title vs title page
People confuse the two because a half title looks like a title page that forgot most of its content. The distinction:
- The half title carries the title only. Never the author. Never the subtitle. Never the publisher.
- The title page carries everything: title, subtitle, author, and usually the imprint and city at the foot. It is the page a library catalogues from.
If a page has the author's name on it, it is the title page, whatever comes before it.
The second half title
Long front matter — a foreword, a preface, a contents list, acknowledgements — can push chapter one a dozen pages in. Some books repeat the half title after all of it, immediately before the first chapter or the first part title, so the text opens with the same breath the book did. This is the second half title. Rare in fiction, common in academic and serious nonfiction, and entirely optional.
Does a self-published book need one?
In print: no, but it is cheap. A half title costs one leaf — two pages of paper — and adds nothing to what KDP or any printer requires. Many self-published paperbacks skip it and open on the title page. Nobody minds. Include it if you want the book to feel like a hardback from a house; skip it if you are watching page count against print cost, or if you simply prefer to get to the title.
In an ebook: skip it. There are no rectos and versos, and the first pages of a Kindle book are the ones a browsing reader sees in the sample. A page with three words on it is a page of sample spent on nothing. Ebook front matter should be as short as it can be — title page, copyright, dedication if you have one, then chapter one — and some authors move even the copyright page to the back.
Setting it
If you keep it: the title alone, in the same typeface as the title page but smaller, placed where the title sits on the title page or a little above the centre. No rule, no ornament, no page number. The verso is blank unless you have an "also by" list, which goes there in a small, plain setting.
Our front matter generator writes the title page, copyright page and dedication. It does not write a half title, because a half title is three words you already have — put the title on a page of its own in front of the title page, or don't, and the formatters treat either as front matter rather than as a chapter.
The rest of the opening pages, and what goes on the copyright page, is in how to write a copyright page.