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THE BASICS
The term “book block” refers to the entirety of a book’s interior pages.
This includes not only the core text of the book itself, but any cover
pages, table of contents, etc. that you wish to be included in the
finished product. It’s important to keep this in mind – uploading a
book block to the EBM will not change the book block file in any way.
Rather, the EBM will print and bind exactly what it gets.
The book block typically consists of three parts:
Front Matter, which is everything that should precede the core text of
the book. In addition to the cover page and table of contents, the front
matter may also include a dedication page, a copyright page, or
anything else appropriate to your project.
Core Text, which is the bulk of your book. The story itself, the poems,
memoirs, chapters, all are included in the Core Text.
Back Matter, which is everything that follows the core text. For
example, you may decide to include an “About the Author” page here,
or a glossary or index.
When you submit your materials to be printed and bound on the EBM,
the entire book block (in other words, all three sections listed above)
should consist of a single PDF. This is what the EBM will use to print
the pages of your book. A second PDF will generate the book’s cover –
but more on that later.
The EBM prints the book block on 8.5” x 11” paper stock, one PDF page
to each side of a sheet of paper. For our purposes, a page refers to one
PDF page or book page, not one sheet of paper (there are two book
pages to each sheet of paper – one on each side). This 8.5” x 11” block
will then be trimmed down to produce a book of the specified size in
the final steps of binding.
