Greetings, everyone. I have good news to share! More of you are self publishing! How do I know this? Because the library I work for has ordered more and more copies of self published books, and many of the authors appear to be local! This is fantastic. However, there is one small thing I noticed about some of the books that I wanted to share:

Many of these books are missing their Verso Page.

What is a Verso Page?

I’m glad you asked (okay you didn’t, but I’m going to answer anyway). The Verso Page contains important information about a book. This includes the title of the book, the author’s name, name and address of the publisher, printer, edition details, ISBN number, copyright information and product code. Every Verso Page isn’t written exactly the same, but they are necessary. This is especially true if a library adds a copy of the book to their collection. Catalogers need to know when the book was published, who the publisher is and which edition the book is (first, second, etc).

How Should A Verso Page Be Written?

I have yet to come across two Verso Pages written the exact same way. There are templates available online, which can be used as a guide. A book published in the United States will have a different style Verso Page from a book published in the UK. I’m going to focus on the U.S. Below, is an example I plucked from the internet.

You definitely need to include the year the book was published, your name, publisher’s name, and copyright information. I include this information in all my books, along with the ISBN number. If someone else designed your book’s cover, include their name as well. If you have a website, you may want to include the address. The copyright information is also very important: this reminds others this is YOUR WORK and it may not be used without your permission.

Below is a picture of the Verso Page from Her Name is Lola Vencent. I published this book in 2017, but I began working on it in 2011, and worked on it off and on through 2017. Your date doesn’t need to be that specific, but I chose to include this information.

Your writing is your creation, and you must protect it.

For examples of Copyright Disclaimers, visit this website.

You can hear me talk a little about this here.

Keep writing, everyone.