The pages around your story are small and nobody thinks about them, which is exactly why getting them wrong is one of the clearest tells of a self-formatted book. There’s a conventional order, the one codified in the Chicago Manual of Style and followed by every trade publisher, and readers register it without knowing they do.

Front matter, in order

  1. Half-title (just the title, nothing else)
  2. Title page (title, subtitle, author, publisher/imprint)
  3. Copyright page (on the verso, the left-hand page)
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph (optional)
  6. Table of contents (usually skipped in fiction)

Fiction skips the table of contents because chapters are numbered, not named for navigation. If you include one, it reads more like a textbook, which is not the signal you want.

The copyright page

This is the page nobody reads and everyone unconsciously judges. It’s where a book quietly proves it was made by someone who knew what they were doing. It should carry:

  • The copyright line: © year, author name
  • “All rights reserved” language
  • Your ISBN(s), and edition line if relevant
  • Publisher/imprint name and location
  • A fiction disclaimer (“This is a work of fiction. Names, characters…”)
  • Credits for cover, editing, or typefaces if you want them

You don’t need legalese you found on someone else’s book. You need the copyright line, the reservation, the ISBN, and the disclaimer. That’s a real copyright page.

Recto and verso

Two words worth knowing: recto is the right-hand page, verso is the left. New chapters and major sections traditionally open on a recto. That means the previous page sometimes has to be left blank, and that blank page is correct, not a mistake. The copyright page sits on a verso.

This is the small thing that makes an interior feel bound rather than printed. Chapters landing on the right, blanks where the flow needs them, nothing crammed to save a page.

Back matter

After the story, in roughly this order: acknowledgements, about the author, and an “also by” list if you have other books. This is prime real estate for a next-book link or a newsletter signup, so don’t waste the last page a reader sees.

Galley sets front and back matter in the correct order for you, recto and verso handled, so you’re filling in text rather than sequencing pages by hand.

There is a front and back matter checklist on this site as well, which switches between the print order and the ebook one, because they are not the same list.