What is front matter in a book?
Front matter is everything in a book before its main text: usually the title page, the copyright page and the contents, and sometimes a dedication, foreword or introduction. It tells a reader what the book is and who owns it before the reading starts.
What it means in practice
Front matter adds length and little reading time, so keep it plain. A short guide needs a title page and a copyright line; a contents page helps once a book has more than a few chapters.
In a printed book these pages are often numbered apart from the main text, or not at all. Chapter 1 still starts on a right-hand page, so a paperback may need a blank page to get there.
How Chapbook uses it
A lead magnet, workbook, nonfiction book, guide or collection gets three pages made for it: the title page, a copyright page with the year and your name, and the contents. They are in the book’s language, and they appear in the PDF, the Word document and the paperback.
You don’t write these pages, and you can ask the assistant to leave them out. In the PDF and the paperback interior, numbering starts at 1 on the first page of the text, so the title, copyright and contents pages carry no number. In the sample on this page, those three pages come just before the Introduction, which is page 1.
A foreword or a dedication is a chapter you add to the outline. Chapbook’s planner marks each chapter of an outline as front, body or back matter, which keeps the front and back short.
In a real book
Related terms
- What is back matter in a book? Back matter is what follows a book's main text: an appendix, notes, an author bio or a call to action. What it is for, and what Chapbook adds at the end of a book.
- What is a running head in a book? A running head is the line at the top of a book's pages naming the book or chapter. Where it goes, where it doesn't, and how Chapbook sets one in a real sample.
Make one
Questions people ask
Is an introduction part of the front matter?
Often, yes. Chapbook's planner marks an introduction as front matter in the outline: in the sample on this page, the Introduction is front matter and the chapters that follow are the body.
Which Chapbook books skip the title, copyright and contents pages?
Brochures, newsletters and activity packs. A brochure has no title page, a newsletter reads straight through, and an activity pack is the cover and then one activity per page.
Read a chapter of your own book before you pay for it.
The outline, one sample chapter up to 2,500 words and a watermarked cover are free: 60 Book Credits on sign-up, no card.