Reference

Front matter

Front matter is everything between the cover and the first chapter. It has a conventional order that almost every published book follows, and a set of rules about which side of the spread each page falls on.

It is not decoration. The copyright page carries your rights statement and your ISBN, and a book without recognisable front matter announces itself as self-published before the reader reaches a sentence of the story.

The order, and which side each page falls on

The order of front matter across the first ten pages Page one, a right-hand page, is the half title. Page two, its left-hand back, is blank. Page three is the title page, page four the copyright page, page five the dedication, page six blank, page seven the epigraph, page eight blank, page nine the contents, and page ten blank. Every named element except the copyright page falls on a right-hand page, and the blanks are what make that work. 1 · recto half title 2 · verso blank 3 · recto title page 4 · verso copyright 5 · recto dedication 6 · verso blank 7 · recto · epigraph 8 · verso · blank 9 · recto · contents 10 · verso · blank 11 · CHAPTER ONE
Every named element except the copyright page opens on a right-hand (recto) page, which is what the blank versos are for. Ten pages of front matter before chapter one is normal, and four of them are blank.

Right-hand pages are rectos and are odd-numbered; left-hand pages are versos and are even. Page 1 is always a recto. Every named element except the copyright page opens on a recto, which is what the blank versos between them are for.

This is why front matter costs around ten pages rather than six, and it is a real printing cost on a long book. Dropping the half title saves two pages; dropping the epigraph saves two more.

What each page is for

Half title
The title alone, no author, no publisher. Page 1. Optional.
Frontispiece
An illustration facing the title page, on the verso. Rare outside illustrated editions.
Title page
Title, subtitle, author, publisher. The most designed page in the front matter.
Copyright page
The one element that belongs on a verso — the back of the title page. Legal content, set small.
Dedication
Short, centred, set in the upper third of the page. No heading.
Epigraph
A quotation, with its attribution. Needs permission if the source is in copyright.
Contents
Chapter numbers and titles with page numbers. Generated, never typed.
Foreword
Written by someone other than the author. Signed with their name.
Preface
Written by the author, about the making of the book.
Introduction
Written by the author, part of the book proper. Sometimes numbered with the body rather than the front matter.

The one page with legal content, and the one most often left half-finished. What it should carry:

  • The copyright notice: © followed by the year of first publication and the copyright holder's name.
  • A rights statement — "All rights reserved" plus the usual sentence about reproduction without written permission.
  • The ISBN for THIS edition. Paperback, hardcover and ebook each need their own; the same ISBN on two formats is an error retailers will eventually catch.
  • For fiction, a disclaimer: the work is a work of fiction, names and incidents are the product of the author's imagination, resemblance to actual persons is coincidental.
  • Credits — cover designer, editor, interior designer. Conventional, and generous.
  • The publisher's name and location, even if the publisher is you under an imprint name.
  • Edition and printing information, if you are tracking it.

This is a description of the convention, not legal advice. Copyright exists whether or not you print a notice, but the notice, the ISBN and the fiction disclaimer are all worth having and cost you a page you were printing anyway.

And the back matter

The conventional order after the last chapter: epilogue, acknowledgements, about the author, also by the same author, a sample chapter of the next book, and any appendices or notes.

For a series, the also-by page is the most commercially useful page in the book and the one most often left stale. It should list the series in reading order, and it should be regenerated every time you publish rather than edited by hand.

Alhora generates the also-by page from the series and rebuilds it on every export, so publishing book four updates the back matter of books one to three.

Questions, answered

What order does front matter go in?

Half title, blank, title page, copyright page, dedication, blank, epigraph, blank, contents. Then chapter one. Not every book has every element, but the relative order is fixed — a dedication never precedes the title page, and the contents always comes last before the body.

What must the copyright page say?

At minimum: the copyright notice (© year, author name), a statement of rights reserved, your ISBN for that edition, and — for fiction — a disclaimer that the work is fictional. Publishers usually add the printing history, the publisher's name and location, and credits for the cover designer and editor.

Do I need a half title page?

No. It is a survival from when books were sold unbound and the first page protected the title page. It is conventional in traditionally published books and its absence is not noticeable in an ebook. In print it costs two pages, which for a long book is a real printing cost.

Does front matter get page numbers?

Not visible ones, usually. The pages are counted — the half title is page 1 — but folios are suppressed until the body begins. Some publishers number the front matter in lower-case roman numerals and restart at 1 for chapter one; that is more common in non-fiction than fiction.

Should the ebook have the same front matter?

No, and this matters commercially. A retailer's sample shows the first 10% of the file — if that is a half title, three blanks and a dedication, the reader has sampled nothing. Cut to title page, copyright, then the story, and move the acknowledgements to the back.

Where does the acknowledgements page go?

The back, in almost all fiction. In non-fiction it sometimes appears in the front, after the contents. In an ebook it belongs at the back regardless, for the sampling reason above.

Front matter built from your metadata

Alhora generates the title page, copyright page and contents from the book's metadata, so they cannot drift out of sync with it — and rebuilds them on export.

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