In book binding, endleaf or endpaper (sometimes simply referred to as "ends”), are actually four pages of your self published book. Endleaves are necessary to hold your printed pages into the hardcover binding and are made of different paper than the rest of the published book (these pages may be printed in a single color or left blank). They generally don't have any copy printed on them and are not counted into the total page count. Not all books have endleaves. A hardcover book without ends is called "self-ended." In a self-ended book, the eight pages of endleaves are counted into the page count. For example, a thirty-two page self-ended book has thirty-two pages (out of which eight pages are endleaves and twenty-four pages are the story).
*You should never shop around for a separate supplier for book binding. Good printers will have in-house binderies. If a company does not, you should rethink using them. Juggling two vendors is time-consuming, expensive, and just difficult.
