The body of a book is one thing. The pages around it are another, and indie authors most often get them wrong — either by leaving them out, by putting them in the wrong order, or by treating them as places to apologise. This note walks through what belongs at the front of a book, what belongs at the back, and which items the reader actually expects.
Front matter, in the order it appears
Front matter is everything between the cover and chapter one. Page numbering in front matter is usually Roman (i, ii, iii) or suppressed entirely; the main text starts page-number 1 on the first page of chapter one.
Half-title page
A right-hand page with the book's title only — no subtitle, no author. It exists for binding reasons, dating from when books were sold unbound and the half-title protected the real title page from soiling. It's optional, but indie books that include it read a touch more produced.
Title page
A right-hand page with title, subtitle (if any), author, and publisher. The publisher line, for an indie book, is your imprint name — even if your imprint is just you. "Published by Bramble Lane Press" reads better than nothing.
Copyright page
The left-hand page facing the title page. This is the page nobody designs and everybody scans. It should contain:
- Copyright notice — "© 2026 Author Name"
- "All rights reserved" line
- "This is a work of fiction…" disclaimer for novels, or a non-fiction equivalent
- ISBN (if you have one)
- First edition or printing notice
- Publisher imprint and address (a town and country is enough)
- Cover designer credit, if applicable
- Typeface credit — "Set in Garamond and Univers" — optional but elegant
Dedication
A right-hand page with one or two lines. "For my mother." That's it. Indie authors tend to over-explain. Don't.
Epigraph (optional)
A quotation that sets tone for the book. Right-hand page. Attribution beneath. Use one only.
Table of contents
Required for non-fiction. Optional for fiction; many novels skip it. If you include one, it sits on a right-hand page with chapter titles and page numbers. eBooks need a TOC regardless because eReaders rely on it for navigation.
Foreword, preface, introduction
These are different things. A foreword is written by someone other than the author. A preface is the author talking about the book from outside it (how it came to be, who it's for). An introduction is part of the work itself.
Forewords need a strong name to earn their page. Prefaces and introductions are common in non-fiction; rare in fiction.
Also by the author
A right-hand page listing the author's previous books. Sits late in front matter, just before chapter one. Most useful when the new book is the third or later — readers who liked it want to find your back catalogue without searching Amazon.
Back matter, in the order it appears
Back matter is everything after the last chapter. Page numbering continues from the main text.
Epilogue
For fiction. A continuation of the story rather than commentary on it. Lives in the same page-number stream as the main chapters. Format like a chapter, with a chapter-style opening page.
Author's note or afterword
The author stepping out of the work. For historical fiction: what's real and what isn't. For non-fiction: caveats, source notes, dedications-after-the-fact. Keep it short.
Acknowledgements
Thanks. Many authors over-do this section. The rule of thumb: name the people who genuinely helped the book, in roughly the order they did so, and stop. Three names with substance beat thirty names without.
About the author
A short biographical paragraph in the third person. One or two lines about where you live and what you do. A reading-club question prompt can follow it for book-club fiction.
Glossary (if needed)
For fantasy with invented terminology, technical non-fiction, historical fiction with period vocabulary. Alphabetised. Don't pad it.
Bibliography or references
Required for non-fiction with citations. Optional reading list is fine for memoir or history. Use a standard citation style and stick to it throughout.
Index
For practical non-fiction. Genuinely useful indexes are expensive to build well; a poor index is worse than no index. If the book will be searched by topic, invest in a professional indexer.
Also by the author (again)
It is acceptable to repeat the also-by list at the back of the book. Readers who finish a book are more likely to buy your next one than browsers who opened the front cover.
Excerpt from the next book
If you have a next book to promote, end with chapter one of it. This is one of the strongest conversion mechanics indie authors have. Keep the excerpt clean; treat it as a chapter, not an advertisement.
What you don't need
A short list of pages that creep in and add nothing:
- Long author's notes about how hard the book was to write. The reader bought a finished book.
- Marketing pages disguised as content — "Please leave a review!" mid-book, sales pitches between chapters.
- Glossaries of words the book already explained inline.
- Reading-group questions for books that aren't reading-group fiction.
- Repeated copyright notices, repeated dedications, repeated everything. The front-matter copyright covers the whole book.
Page-numbering conventions
Front matter uses lowercase Roman numerals (i, ii, iii…) or no visible numbering. The title page is usually unnumbered though it counts as page i. Chapter one begins page 1 in Arabic numerals and the count runs unbroken through the back matter.
Many indie books get this wrong by starting page 1 at the cover and counting straight through, which makes "page 56" mean something different inside the book than on the platform's reader-page count. Use the Roman/Arabic split; it's the publishing convention and tools expect it.
Where Folio Format fits
Folio Format treats front matter and back matter as first-class structural sections, not afterthoughts. The standard pieces — title page, copyright, dedication, also-by, acknowledgements, about the author — are templated and editable, with the page-number split between Roman and Arabic handled automatically. You decide what belongs in the book; the studio handles the typesetting and pagination.