Front & Back Matter—Does It Matter?

Whether you realize it or not, the front and back matter of your book is just as important as the story. It needs to be void of typos and errors, have links that work, and kept up to date!

What should be included in your front and back matter? Lots of things! But what is included and where differs between e-books and print books. Let’s start with e-books.

Because of the way most e-books are set up on Amazon and some other sites, when the reader opens the book on their device, it usually starts at either the Prologue or Chapter 1, meaning everything before that is skipped over. The reader may or may not flip back and look at it, so it’s better to put certain things at the back of the book where there’s a better chance they’ll see them at the conclusion of the story. If you use certain formatting software, such as Vellum, the book may open to a preface, introduction, or other set page. Still others might open at the cover due to certain formatting, but a majority of the books out there open to the beginning of the actual story. The following is how I format my front and back matter after spending a lot of time researching where to put everything.

E-book front matter (before the story) may include the following:

• Title page—Book title, subtitle, author name, publisher name
• Copyright—include disclaimer, year of publication, ISBN, who holds the rights to the book, and, if available, the editor, cover designer, photographer, and cover model.
  **I’ve read several conflicting opinions to where this should be placed in an e-book and decided to put mine at the very end of the book so it’s the last page. You can place it here or at the end.
• Dedication
• Table of Contents—hyperlink the TOC entries to the corresponding chapters and sections. 
• A preface or introduction. One of my series has spawned several spinoff series. There are a lot of characters from the original series who pop up in the spinoff series, so I created a Who’s Who of characters that appear in many of the books. I list their jobs, military brank/rank, family relations, spouse/girlfriend, and any other important matter. My readers have told me they love having it as a reference guide.

E-book back matter may include the following:

• Immediately after “The End,” thank the reader for taking the time to read your book, then politely ask them to consider leaving a review. Provide the link to where they can leave the review. If you’ve included a preview chapter for another book, ask them to keep reading. At the end of the preview, include a link where they can pre-order the book. If it’s not on pre-order yet, consider a landing page where they can sign up to be notified when the pre-order is available. (Thank you, Author Sylvie Stewart, for reminding me to point out that Amazon tries to “kick” the reader out of the book after “The End,” so make sure the info in this point is on the same page as “The End”—no page break.)
• Any Author’s Note you want to give the readers in regard to the story they just read.
• Other Books by (Author)—make sure you put in hyperlinks to where the reader can purchase each book. You should update this religiously after each new release. 
• Acknowledgements—the list of people you want to thank for helping to bring your book to life!
• Connect With (Author)—this is where you provide all your social media links, so the reader can follow you.
• About the Author—your biography.
• Copyright page (if you choose to put it at the end instead of the front.)

For print books, there are a few differences from the e-books, starting with the front matter:

• Reviews For (Insert the book’s title)—one page of brief reviews or excerpts from the reviews, along with the reviewers’ names and websites if applicable.
• Other Books By (Author)—Some readers like to see if the book is part of a series and how many books are currently out.
• Title page—Book title, subtitle, author name, publisher name
• Copyright page – include disclaimer, year of publication, ISBN, who holds the rights to the book, and, if available, the editor, cover designer, photographer, and cover model.
• Dedication
• Any Author Note pertaining to the book.
• Foreword—Short entry written by someone other than the author 
• Preface—An introduction to the story written by the author. 
• Acknowledgements—thank everyone you need to.
  ***There is no table of contents needed for a printed fiction book.

Back matter for print books:

• Again, immediately after “The End” thank the reader for choosing your book and ask them to leave a review on their favorite book market site.
• Preview for another book with buy links or release date information
• About the Author—your bio, the links to social media where you can be found, and a newsletter signup link.

As usual, none of this is written in stone! Some authors may move the placement of a few items. Play around a bit, do some research, and find what works for you. There is no right or wrong way to do most of your front and back matter, just try to be consistent throughout your books. Make sure the reader can easily figure out where they can get your next book!