The Foreword is written by someone who is not the author. Many publishers and authors like to put Acknowledgments in the back matter, and that’s just fine. (Refer to our copyright page article for more details on this.) Start them on the copyright page, then add a separate Credits section in the back matter if necessary. The Acknowledgments can also be included as a separate section inside the Preface.ĭon’t include your list of credits for images or text quotations in the Acknowledgments.

(Remember, this is not a dedication.) Feel free to wax lyrical about all the help you received, but try not to go on for more than two pages. Here is where you thank your team members. We had a lot of people to thank in our acknowledgments section.

Nevertheless, some of the optional ones will probably be essential for your book. Remember that, aside from the title page and copyright page, they’re all optional. Click To Tweet The elements: What belongs (and what doesn’t) on each page The elements: What belongs (and what doesn’t) on each pageĬonfused about book front matter pages-the order they should go in, what they should contain? We straighten it all out for you here: bit.ly/2LJQbFZ.Skip to the section you’re most interested in by clicking on a link below. The list below shows the order we’re following. But in this piece we’ll stick with the order we suggest in Book Design Made Simple, and add a few less common elements just so we include every little thing. Others like to put Acknowledgments at the end of the book. Some publishers like to put the Contents before the Preface and some like it after. The usual order of book front matter elementsĪs we mentioned, there’s a well established order for the types of pages that appear at the very beginning of books, but it’s somewhat flexible. Then I’ll explain what each one consists of. So first I’ll show you the usual order of things. Over the centuries, countless bookmaking traditions have developed and we’ve all become used to front matter elements being presented in a certain way.

So I’m going to straighten this out for all you indie authors and publishers, because a professional-looking front matter is the best beginning for any book. But many manuscripts have arrived at our desks with a jumble of other pages that are misnamed, out of order, or sometimes simply puzzling. A title page and a copyright page are absolutely essential.

Eclipse book front cover