Front matter and back matter, in order

You finished the manuscript. Now you're staring at the question of what goes before chapter one and after the last line — the title pages, the copyright page, the dedication, the also-by list. Here's the short version, then the reasoning.

Standard front matter order for a novel runs: half-title page, title page, copyright page, dedication, then the book. Nonfiction usually adds a table of contents and sometimes a foreword or introduction. Back matter, in order, typically runs: acknowledgments, about the author, and an also-by / newsletter call-to-action. Most of these pieces are optional. Three are not: the title page, the copyright page, and — for nonfiction — a table of contents.

That's the map. Below is what each piece is, which ones you can skip, and the page-numbering convention that trips up almost everyone the first time.

What goes in the front matter (and in what order)

Front matter is everything between the cover and chapter one. Here's the conventional sequence, with notes on what's required versus optional.

Half-title page. Just the book's title, alone on the page. Nothing else — no author name, no subtitle. It's a traditional courtesy page that protects and announces the full title that follows. Optional, but it makes a book feel professionally produced. In a series, this is also a natural spot to face an "also by" list on the opposite page.

Title page. The full title, subtitle, author name, and publisher or imprint. This is the page libraries and catalogs pull your citation data from, so get the title and name exactly right. Required.

Copyright page. Sits on the back (verso) of the title page. Carries the copyright notice (© year, your name), "all rights reserved" language, your ISBN, edition info, and often a line noting the book is a work of fiction. Required. This is the one page where it pays to copy a clean, current template rather than freehand it.

Dedication. Short and personal — "For Sara." Optional. Conventionally placed on a right-hand page after the copyright page.

Epigraph. An optional quotation that frames the book's themes. If you use someone else's words, confirm you have the right to — quoting lyrics or recent poetry can require permission. (Worth verifying for your specific quote; permissions rules are their own rabbit hole.)

Table of contents. Standard in nonfiction, optional in fiction. Many novels skip it entirely, especially when chapters aren't titled. If your chapters have names readers might want to navigate by, include one.

Foreword, preface, or introduction. Mostly nonfiction territory. A foreword is written by someone other than you (an endorsement, essentially). A preface or introduction is your own framing. Optional, and most novels need none of this.

A barebones fiction front matter is honestly just three pages: half-title, title, copyright. Don't manufacture front matter you don't need — empty ceremony makes a book feel padded, not polished.

What goes in the back matter

Back matter is everything after the story ends. For an indie author, this is prime real estate — a reader who just finished your book is the most likely person on earth to buy your next one. Use it.

Acknowledgments. Thanks to editors, beta readers, family. Optional, commonly included. Can also go in the front matter, but the back is more typical for fiction.

About the author. A short bio and, ideally, a way to reach you. Optional but recommended — readers who liked the book look here.

Also by the author. A list of your other titles. If you have a backlist, this page earns its space; a reader finishing book three of a series will go looking for the others.

The call to action. A newsletter signup link, a request for a review, or a teaser for the next book. This is the single most valuable page in your back matter from a business standpoint, and the one most first-time authors forget. A reader who just turned the last page is warm — give them one clear next step.

For nonfiction, back matter expands to include things like endnotes, an appendix, a bibliography, and an index, in that general order.

The page-numbering rule everyone gets wrong

Here's the detail most order-of-front-matter guides skip, and it's the one that separates a homemade-looking interior from a professional one.

Print books use two numbering systems. Front matter is numbered with lowercase roman numerals (i, ii, iii). The main text restarts at arabic 1 on the first page of chapter one (or the prologue/introduction, if you have one). This isn't decoration — it lets you add a foreword in a second edition later without renumbering the entire book.

There are two more conventions inside that:

  1. Counted but not shown. The half-title, title, copyright, and dedication pages are counted in the sequence — the half-title is page i — but the number is never printed on them. You'd never see "i" stamped on a title page. The count continues silently underneath.
  2. Recto and verso. Right-hand pages (recto) are always odd; left-hand pages (verso) are always even. Certain pages conventionally open on the right: the title page, and usually chapter one. That's why you'll sometimes need a blank left-hand page to push the next element onto a recto. The copyright page, by contrast, lives on a verso — the back of the title page.

For fiction, you have some latitude. Many novels don't print front-matter page numbers at all and simply start visible numbering at chapter one. What you should not do is run a single continuous arabic sequence from the title page through the end — that's the tell of a manuscript formatted in a hurry.

A note on running headers, too: those don't belong on front-matter pages, chapter-opening pages, or blank pages. They start with the body text.

A clean default sequence to copy

For a standard novel, this works:

  1. Half-title page (recto)
  2. (blank, or also-by list) (verso)
  3. Title page (recto)
  4. Copyright page (verso)
  5. Dedication (recto)
  6. (blank if needed) (verso)
  7. Chapter one begins (recto, arabic page 1)

…and at the back:

  1. Acknowledgments
  2. About the author
  3. Also by the author
  4. Newsletter / review call-to-action

Adjust for your genre — add a table of contents and foreword for nonfiction, drop the dedication if you don't have one — but this skeleton will never look amateurish.

Don't hand-place this page by page

The order is the easy part. The fiddly part is making the recto/verso logic, the two numbering systems, and the suppressed page numbers all hold together across a 300-page interior — and then keeping them consistent between your print PDF and your EPUB, where "recto" and "verso" don't even exist and the front matter just flows.

This is the kind of thing worth letting a formatting tool handle so you're not manually inserting blank pages and toggling page-number visibility. In Pendrilo, the front and back matter slot into the print-ready PDF and EPUB output with the numbering conventions applied automatically, so you arrange the content and the layout rules take care of themselves. However you produce it, the goal is the same: get the order and the numbering right once, and your book reads as professionally made from the very first page.