=In General.=--Wherever possible illustrations to occupy a full page should stand vertically on the page. This is, we think, obviously more satisfactory to the user of the book.
Folded plates and charts should be avoided as far as possible, not only because they involve an unreasonable expense, but because American readers, at least, do not like them. Furthermore any considerable number of inserted charts weakens the binding of the book.
Color plates and maps in color are prohibitively expensive for most technical books, but systems of shading and cross-hatching can be employed as a substitute for colors in many forms of illustration.
=The Number of Illustrations.=--The cost of engravings of all types has risen out of all proportion to the costs of other details of book manufacture, and there is no present prospect of a reduction in the scale of prices. This proves to be especially burdensome to the publishers of technical and scientific books where the texts generally contain a large number of illustrations. Accordingly we ask authors to consider carefully the possibilities of reducing the number of illustrations. In books of the character of ours illustrations are essential, and wherever they aid the reader in grasping the subject or are essential to the understanding of the subject, they cannot be eliminated. But we do not believe in illustrations that are merely "pictures" and are not essential to the understanding of the text. Wherever they can be dispensed with, without injury to the text, they should be eliminated in order that the retail price of the book may be kept within reasonable limits.
=Sample Galleys.=--When the manuscript has been prepared in our offices for the printer, and the time has come to undertake the manufacture of the book, we ask the printer, first, to set a few pages of the manuscript and submit them to us in galley proofs. These are in turn submitted to the author in order that he may study the typography and inform us if we have in any way misunderstood his manuscript and the marks on it. This step is, of course, dispensed with if a definite agreement has been reached in advance as to the typographical details of the book.
When the author has looked over these first galleys, not with the idea of proof-reading but of determining upon the style, we instruct the printer to proceed with the typesetting.