Front Matter: Title Page, Copyright, Dedication, Table of Contents, Epigraph
There are a lot of things at the front of a book (before the good stuff) that can be included in your book! It can get a little confusing what each one is, so let’s go over what they are and if you really need them.
Three Quick Things:
I presented these items in the order they should appear in your book.
Not all are required.
Each of these items needs to be on a separate page.
Title Page
When you first open a book, you should see a title page. That should be the very first thing in your book. It can be as simple as having the title and your name on it, or you can make it more decorative. That’s it. Really simple; it just needs to be there.
Copyright
This comes right after the title page and is required! This is where you put your name, the ISBN, the publisher (unless you’re self-publishing), the publication date, all that—all the stuff someone would need to cite this book goes on this page. This is also where you put the “All Rights Reserved” notice. You can also include disclaimers and content warnings here, if you want. Check out this page for info about what to put on your copyright page. You can also look at books in your genre to see what they have written on their copyright pages.
Dedication
After that is the dedication page. If you want to dedicate your book to someone, this is where you would do it—this is optional. It can span from a few words to a few sentences.
Table of Contents
This is expected in nonfiction books and not so much in fiction, but you can do whatever you want based on what will help your readers. Anything before the table of contents should not be included in the table of contents, so this is best to put before any important content.
Epigraph
This is optional and can be more than one page. More common in fiction, this could be a song, poem, map, or something else to introduce your book.
Other Front Matter
The preface, introduction, prologue, and foreword can be included here. To learn more about each of these, check out this post!
Now you can add chapter one and go from there!
I hope this was helpful for you putting together your book. Let me know if you have any questions! I can also refer you to professional typesetters if they are better suited to answer your questions. If you’re looking for information about back matter, check out this post!
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