What to Arrange for Your Front and Back Matter to Publish

Google “book parts,” “front matter” or “back matter” and you will find many articles and lists on how to arrange the pages and elements of your manuscript for publication.

But I say, be aware of all those parts of a book you can have, and choose very wisely what you will include and how long the text will be. Because when it comes down to it, every page of your manuscript costs pennies to print if its Print On Demand (POD). This is important because for us self-publishers who use POD platforms like Amazon KDP, the cost to print the book is subtracted from our retail price before we make any royalties. Of course, you can set your price higher to earn more, but that may derail potential buyers. For example, I recently set my price for a 310 page book at $13.99. Amazon KDP wants $4.55 to print that, and then takes 40% of what’s left, leaving me 60%. You can do the math. Also, KDP has a floor price to sell which you can’t go below.

Starting out it’s good to set your price lower to encourage more eyeballs and word of mouth, and KDP offers some programs to do that. Bottom line: the number of pages costs you $$, so be succinct and precise in what you do. BUT YOU CAN DO ANYTHING YOU WANT TO WITHIN REASON. Note that some of these suggestions vary based on fiction or nonfiction.

The pages of any book are called verso or recto. Recto is the "right" or "front" side and verso is the "left" or "back" side when text is written or printed on a leaf of paper. It is critical you get these correct when formatting your manuscript. I’ve done it for my own three books and a dozen others.

But I’m here to tell you, the author, there are recommended and traditional recto and verso pages for your front and back matter. Here is a basic outline of many of them from Dave Chesson of Kindlepreneur. They are not exhaustive.:

What are the parts of a book called?

1. Front Matter

   • Title Page

   • Copyright Page

   • Table of Contents

   • Dedication/Acknowledgement Pages

   • Foreword

   • Preface or Introduction

   • Epigraph

2. The Body

   • Prologue

   • Chapters

   • Epilogue

3. Back Matter

   • Afterword

   • Appendix or Addendum

   • Endnotes

   • Bibliography

   • Author Bio

   • Coming Soon/Read More

   • Also By

The first recto page is the Title page, with Title in big letters, your name, and if published by a company, their city location and country, and name, at the bottom of the page. If you have a frontispiece (illustration or photo), it would face the Title page on the verso. Increasingly, authors are putting a page of Review quotes opposite the Title page.

On the verso of the Title page is Copyright information, contact info, permissions, Disclaimers if any, edition etc. I like to put the Dedication next, with an Epigraph relating to the theme of the book on the verso. Then on the recto starts the Table of Contents, I just call “Contents." In MS-Word you can generate a TOC automatically if you’ve used a Heading in the Styles ribbon to signify each Chapter name. Set your MS-Word Options settings to Update before closing and the TOC will always be up to date.

If you have a special known or popular writer who has read your book and will write a good Forward, this comes next. But most writers can bypass this and should include a Preface, written by themselves, that generates interest and some context (without giving it all away, especially if fiction). This sets the tone of the chapters and story that follow. But keep it short, no more than two pages. An Introduction is different. I would only use one if I needed (and should be less than two pages), to give backstory or context that wasn’t woven into the chapters.

The Body or Chapters, starting at page 1 on the recto, are next. Prologues have fallen out of use, so choose carefully if you need one to precede the first chapter. If you’ve written a good Preface, you don’t need a Prologue. After all the chapters, which should vary in length, you may have an Epilogue, or last chapter resolution, or thoughts to share on the story. It could be called In Conclusion, or In Closing in nonfiction.

Photos and pictures, even sketches, if possible, should be used appropriately throughout the text to enhance the reading experience. But they must carefully vetted to pertain to the context. In my latest book of 100 essays, I incorporated 80 photos, and they must all be jpeg, licensed, or public domain. In my Volume 1 of 100 essays, I bartered editing work for the sketches used.

The Back Matter should contain any Appendix exhibits, Endnotes to cite your sources of quotations used, preferably hyperlinks, Acknowledgments, a page and your author photo in About Me (a longer Bio), and a Contact Me page to encourage reviews, give links to your social media sites, and show your email address.

Reedsy has good information at https://blog.reedsy.com/guide/parts-of-a-book/ Kindlepreneur by Dave Chesson also provides some other resources at https://kindlepreneur.com/parts-of-a-book/ I also recommend you subscribe free to their newsletters and blogs.