WHY YOU SHOULD TAKE SIGNING AND INSCRIBING YOUR BOOKS VERY SERIOUSLY.

First, here are a few bits of book lore authors may not know.

By tradition and convention, authors should always sign their books on the title page, the page which has the author’s name printed on it, under the printed title of the book or nearer the foot of the same page.

If the author wishes to add an inscription, a message along with their signature, it should also go on the title page if it is short, about a word or four in length. Longer inscriptions should be written on the half-title page, the page preceding the title page, or on the front endpaper, sometimes referred to as the flyleaf, if of a serious length.

A longstanding tradition has the author put a line through their own printed name when they sign their name on the title page.

There are, by historical anecdote, two views of why this practice is undertaken.

The first is a book only needs a single validation attributing its author; the author's handwritten signature makes the printed attribution unnecessary; hence it is crossed out.

The second accepted reason goes back to the earliest days of printing…

Read the full blog at https://bit.ly/signingyourbooks