The pages around your story are small and nobody thinks about them, which is why getting them wrong is one of the easiest ways to spot a self-formatted book. There’s a standard order, the one in the Chicago Manual of Style that trade publishers follow, and readers notice when it’s off even if they couldn’t tell you why.

Front matter, in order

  1. Half-title. Just the title, on a right-hand page.
  2. Title page. Title, subtitle, author, and the publisher or imprint if you have one.
  3. Copyright page. On the back of the title page, the left-hand page.
  4. Dedication.
  5. Epigraph, if you have one.
  6. Table of contents. Often left out of novels.

Plenty of novels skip the half-title and start on the title page, especially print-on-demand books where every page costs money. That’s fine.

The table of contents is a real choice in fiction. If your chapters are only numbered, a contents page of “Chapter One, Chapter Two…” doesn’t help anyone. If they have titles, it can be nice. Ebooks are different, because readers use the contents to navigate, so an EPUB should always have one.

The copyright page

It’s the page nobody reads and everybody judges a little. The usual lines are:

  • The copyright notice: © year, your name.
  • “All rights reserved”, and a line allowing brief quotes in reviews.
  • Your ISBN(s), and an edition line.
  • The publisher or imprint, if you have one.
  • The fiction disclaimer (“This is a work of fiction. Names, characters…”).
  • Credits for the cover, editing or typeface, if you want them.

You don’t need the legal paragraphs you found in someone else’s book. There’s a line-by-line version in the copyright page for a novel.

Recto and verso

Recto is the right-hand page and verso is the left. Chapter one, and major sections like parts, traditionally start on a recto. That means the page before sometimes has to be blank, and that blank page is correct, not a mistake. The copyright page sits on a verso. The anatomy of a book page has a labelled diagram.

Back matter

After the story, roughly in this order: acknowledgements, About the author, and an Also by list if you have other books. A glossary or endnotes, if the book has them, go before the acknowledgements. This is the last page a reader sees, so it’s a good place for the next book or your newsletter. An epilogue isn’t back matter, it’s part of the story, and there’s more on that in should your novel have a prologue.

How Galley does it

In Galley you tick the front and back matter you want when you create a book, or add them later from Metadata → Front & back matter, and each one goes where it usually goes. The contents page is made from your chapters and parts, the copyright page is written from your book’s details, and the dedication, epigraph and copyright page are laid out the way published books set them. You write the words, and Galley puts the pages in order. In the print PDF each of these starts on a new page, and chapter one, every part and the chapter after a part open on a right-hand page, with a blank page before them when they need one. The contents page lists the page each chapter starts on. It’s all in the structure docs.

There’s also a free front and back matter checklist that switches between the print order and the ebook order, because they’re not the same list.