Front matter is the set of pages before the text. Its order is older than any retailer, and readers know it without thinking about it, so a mistake shows on the first spread. Two rules cover most of it.
Recto is the right-hand page and always has an odd number; verso is the left-hand page and always even. Anything marked “recto” below must open on the right. If the previous page does not leave it there, add a blank page.
Number the front matter in lowercase roman numerals, and the body in arabic numerals starting again at 1. Chapter one starts on page 1, on a recto. That is why a foreword can be added after layout without renumbering everything.
The order
Few books have all of these. Use the ones you have, in this order.
Four common mistakes
Foreword, preface, introduction
A foreword is written and signed by someone else. A preface is yours, about the book: how it came to be written and who it is for. An introduction is yours, about the subject, and is needed to understand the rest.
That decides the numbering. An introduction that is part of the argument or the story belongs to the body and takes arabic page 1. One a reader could skip is front matter and stays in roman. Both are correct; choose deliberately.
The copyright page
Always the back of the title page, page iv; libraries and catalogers rely on that position. It carries the copyright notice and year, the edition, the ISBN of this edition and, where they apply, the printing line and the rights reserved statement.
Blind folios
A blind folio counts in the numbering but shows no number: the half title, the title page, the copyright page, the dedication, the epigraph and every blank. The contents page is the exception in the front matter and carries its roman numeral.
Chapter openings differ between publishers. Some set them blind; others print the number centered at the foot of the page, a “drop folio”. Both are correct. The running head never appears on a chapter opening, and a number on an otherwise blank page always reads as a mistake.
Chapters on the right
Non-fiction and academic books open chapters on a recto, adding a blank verso where needed. Trade fiction often lets a chapter open on either side: across fifty chapters the blanks add twenty-odd pages, and pages cost money in print.
Either is fine. Mixing them is not, and that is what happens when chapter breaks are made by pressing Return.
What goes at the back
In this order, and all of it optional:
- Appendices
- Notes, if you collect them at the end rather than at the foot of each page
- Glossary
- Bibliography or works cited
- Index — always made last, because it needs the final page numbers
- About the author
- Also by, or an extract from the next book
Acknowledgments can sit at either end. In fiction they usually go at the back, so the reader reaches the story sooner.
Front matter is real pages, and print has a 24-page minimum and an even-page-count requirement. One of our test documents runs 22 pages without front matter, which is not printable, and 30 with it. In a long book, the same pages can push it into the next gutter band. Settle the front matter before calculating anything else.
What Torcul does with this
It builds the order above: half title, blank, title page, copyright on its back, dedication, blank, epigraph, blank, contents. Anything you do not supply is skipped, not left as an empty page.
Every page that should fall on a recto does, and any page added for that is blank. The front matter is numbered in roman, and the body restarts at arabic 1 on its own recto.
You supply these pages; they are not read from the manuscript. Manuscripts rarely contain a copyright page, and inventing one would mean inventing a rights statement and an ISBN.