Front matter and back matter are the pages that frame your book’s content — and they do real work. The front matter establishes credibility and sets up the reading experience. The back matter converts finished readers into reviewers, subscribers, and buyers of your next book. Getting both right is a production and marketing task simultaneously.
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Every book has three parts: the front matter before the main content, the body of the work itself, and the back matter after. Most authors spend enormous time on the body and very little on either end — and it shows. Front matter that buries the reader in a long list of permissions statements and international copyright notices before they reach page one is front matter that makes a bad first impression. Back matter that ends with a bare “Thank You” and nothing else leaves the highest-value real estate in the book completely unleveraged. This guide covers every element of both, what belongs in each, and the specific differences between ebook and print formatting that affect how you build them.
Front Matter: The Essential Elements
Front matter is everything before chapter one (or the introduction for non-fiction). In traditional publishing it follows a relatively fixed order: half-title page, series or other books page, full title page, copyright page, dedication, epigraph (if any), table of contents (for non-fiction), list of figures or illustrations (for technical non-fiction), foreword (if applicable), preface, and finally the introduction or prologue. Self-published books don’t need to include all of these — the essential minimum is the title page and copyright page. Everything else is optional and should only be included if it genuinely adds value for the specific book and genre.
The title page should display the book’s full title, subtitle if applicable, author name or pen name, and optionally your publishing imprint name. It should be simple and clean — matching the typographic style of the rest of the book’s interior. A title page that uses a dramatically different font or layout from the rest of the interior creates a jarring visual inconsistency.
The copyright page is where the legal and bibliographic information lives: the copyright line (© year Author Name. All rights reserved.), your ISBN(s) for each format, your publishing imprint name and location (or “Independently published” if not using your own imprint), a disclaimer if relevant (for fiction: “This is a work of fiction…”; for non-fiction with professional advice: “This book does not constitute professional [legal/medical/financial] advice…”), and optionally the book’s edition designation. For first editions, you don’t need to include “First Edition” — it’s implied by the absence of an edition designation. Get the copyright page content right before formatting — errors in the ISBN, the publication year, or the legal language require re-uploading the formatted file to correct. A proofread copyright page from Vappingo’s manuscript proofreading service catches these errors before they’re locked into a formatted book.
Front Matter Order: Ebook vs Print
Front matter ordering differs meaningfully between ebook and print formats. In a print book, the convention is to place the copyright page and acknowledgements in the front matter before chapter one — readers encounter them as they leaf through to the first page of content. In a Kindle ebook, this front-loading creates a poor reading experience: a reader who opens a Kindle book for the first time is shown the Start Reading Location (set to chapter one, not the copyright page), but a reader who navigates to the front of the book encounters the copyright page and other front matter that can feel like a wall of text before the story begins.
Many ebook-first authors therefore move non-essential front matter — acknowledgements, extended dedications, author’s notes — to the back matter instead, and keep the ebook front matter minimal: title page, copyright page, and (for non-fiction) the table of contents. This gives new ebook readers the most direct path to the actual content. For print, the traditional front-matter order is fine because readers can physically see where the text begins and flip directly to it.
In both formats, ensure the Kindle Start Reading Location is set to the first page of actual reading content — chapter one for fiction, the introduction or first chapter for non-fiction. This is set automatically by formatting tools based on where they detect the first chapter heading. If you’re formatting in Word and converting to EPUB manually, verify the Start Reading Location in KDP’s Online Previewer by checking where the book opens when you first “open” it in the simulator — it should land on chapter one, not the title page or copyright page.
The Dedication and Epigraph
Dedications and epigraphs are short, personal elements of front matter that add warmth and context to the reading experience. A dedication is typically one sentence or short paragraph addressed to specific people — family, friends, readers, or a general dedicatee. It goes on its own right-hand (recto) page in print, and on its own screen in ebooks, keeping it visible and separate from the surrounding functional front matter.
An epigraph is a quotation — from literature, from a relevant non-fiction source, or from another writer — that sets a thematic tone for the book or a chapter. Epigraphs require copyright consideration: if you’re quoting from a living or recently deceased author’s copyrighted work, permission may be required for commercial publication, depending on the length and the copyright holder’s policies. Quoting a sentence or two from a long novel is generally treated as fair use for the purposes of epigraph use in another literary work, but this is not a universal rule — when in doubt about a specific quote, seek guidance before publication. For public domain sources (works published before 1928 in the US, or works by authors who died over 70 years ago in most of Europe), epigraphs can be used freely. The US Copyright Office guidance at copyright.gov provides clarification on what constitutes fair use for quotation purposes.
Back Matter: The Elements That Do Real Work
Back matter is the pages after the last page of your main content. In traditional publishing, back matter typically includes acknowledgements, bibliography or references, index (for non-fiction), and author bio. Self-published authors have the same elements available — but also have several additional tools that traditionally published authors don’t always use: review requests, reader magnet sign-ups, and series continuation pages with direct purchase links. These additional tools are where back matter becomes a marketing function, not just a production one.
The most important back matter element for most self-published authors is the review request page. Readers who have finished and enjoyed your book are at peak emotional engagement — they’re the most likely people in the world to leave you a review, and a direct, warm, personal request in the final pages of the book is the most effective way to convert that goodwill into review action. Keep the review request brief and genuine: a single paragraph thanking the reader for their time and explaining how much reviews help independent authors reach new readers, with the direct link to your Amazon review page. Don’t guilt or pressure — just ask warmly and make it easy by giving the link. The Amazon Book Reviews guide covers the full strategy for building reviews, including how in-book CTAs compare to other acquisition methods.
Series Continuation and “Also By” Pages
For series authors, the back matter is where read-through mechanics begin. Immediately after the review request, include a dedicated “Continue the series” page for the next book — cover image, title, and a one-paragraph hook. The hook should reveal just enough of the next book’s premise to create urgency without spoiling the current book’s resolution. Follow it with a clickable direct purchase link for ebooks, or a QR code alongside the URL for print editions.
After the series continuation page, an “Also by [Author Name]” page listing your full catalogue — with clickable links for ebooks — serves readers who have finished your book and want to explore your other work. List your books by series and standalone, with brief descriptions if your catalogue is large enough to warrant it. For small catalogues (two to five books), a simple list with cover images works well. For larger catalogues, organising by series makes navigation easier. Every clickable link in your ebook back matter should use the full https:// URL to your Amazon or Kindle book page — deep links that take readers directly to the product page, not to your author page where they have to search for the book again.
Author Bio and Newsletter Sign-Up
Your author bio page is where you introduce yourself to readers who have just spent several hours in your imaginative world and want to know who created it. Write it in third person (the publishing convention), in a tone that matches your books — a thriller author’s bio reads differently from a cozy mystery author’s bio. Include where you live if you’re comfortable sharing it (readers enjoy this geographic context), what you write and why, and one or two personal details that humanise you without oversharing. Keep it to two or three paragraphs maximum — readers have just finished a book, not embarking on another one.
The newsletter sign-up page is your highest-value long-term conversion tool. A reader who gives you their email address after finishing one of your books is a warm subscriber who already knows and likes your work — the most valuable kind of list member. Offer your reader magnet clearly (a free story, a bonus chapter, an exclusive content piece) and give the direct sign-up URL or a QR code. For the mechanics of building and growing your reader list, the Author Email List guide covers the full strategy including which email service providers work best for authors and how to set up an automated welcome sequence.
All back matter text — review request copy, series hooks, author bio, newsletter offer — should be as carefully proofread as the main manuscript. Readers notice errors in back matter even after finishing a clean book body, and errors in the review request page specifically can undermine the trust needed for a reader to act on it. Vappingo’s manuscript proofreading service reviews your complete book file including all front and back matter — ensuring every page your readers encounter is polished and professional. The Alliance of Independent Authors provides a practical front and back matter reference guide at allianceindependentauthors.org that covers conventions across different genres and book lengths.
Every Page Counts — Including the First and Last
An error on the copyright page or in the review request undermines the professionalism of everything that came before it. Vappingo proofreads your complete manuscript — front matter, main text, and back matter — so every page meets the same standard.
