Free Book Front Matter Generator
Build the pages before chapter one — title page, copyright page, dedication and author material — and copy the finished text into your manuscript.
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Your front matter
Title page
A right-hand page, on its own. No page number, no header.
Untitled Author name
The opening pages
What goes before chapter one
Front matter has a conventional order. Nobody enforces it, but readers notice when it is wrong, and a printer will assume it.
- 01Half titleThe title alone. Often dropped in self-published books.
- 02Title pageTitle, subtitle, author, imprint.
- 03Copyright pageAlways a verso — the back of the title page.
- 04DedicationRecto, short, and set with a lot of air.
- 05ContentsNon-fiction usually; novels usually not.
- 06Chapter oneOpens on a right-hand page.
The disclaimer
Fiction and non-fiction should not use the same one
A novel's copyright page carries some version of “any resemblance to actual persons is coincidental”. That sentence exists to signal the book is invented.
A memoir must not carry it. Asserting that a book about your own life is coincidental fiction is an odd thing to print, and it undercuts the only claim a memoir makes. The generator switches the wording when you set the book type, which is why the setting is there rather than being a formatting preference.
This is a template, not legal advice
The copyright page produced here follows the usual convention for trade books, and a conventional copyright notice is not what creates your copyright — that exists from the moment you write the work.
If you need a registered copyright, a specific licence, or wording for a co-authored or work-for-hire book, that is a question for someone qualified to answer it. This tool arranges standard text; it does not know your circumstances.
Next
Front matter ready. Now put it inside the book
Paste these pages at the top of your manuscript, before chapter one, then format the whole document. The formatters treat front matter as front matter — it does not get a chapter opening or a running head of its own.
Pages written?
Format the finished bookPrinting a paperback?
Publishing the ebook?
Want the reasoning behind each line?
Questions
Front matter, answered
What actually has to be on a copyright page?
Less than people fear. The copyright notice — the © symbol, the year of first publication and the name of the rights holder — is the substantive part. Everything else is convention: the rights statement, the edition, the ISBN, the publisher's imprint. In most countries copyright exists from the moment you write something, so the page records a claim rather than creating one.
Do I need to register my copyright first?
Not to publish, and not to put a notice on the page. Copyright arises automatically on creation almost everywhere. Registration is a separate step that in some countries — the United States notably — strengthens what you can claim in a dispute. That is a question for a lawyer in your jurisdiction, not for a formatting tool.
Why does fiction get an extra paragraph?
The “any resemblance to actual persons is coincidental” disclaimer only makes sense for invented work. On a memoir it would be an odd thing to assert about your own life, and on a history it would undercut the book. So the generator only includes it when you say the book is fiction.
Do I need an ISBN?
Not for a Kindle ebook — Amazon assigns its own identifier. For print, KDP will give you a free ISBN, with the trade-off that it lists KDP as the publisher and cannot be used elsewhere. Buying your own keeps the imprint yours and travels with the book. Leave the field blank if you have not decided.
What order do these pages go in?
Also-by, then title page, then copyright on its reverse, then dedication. The copyright page is always the back of the title page, which is why they are never separated. About-the-author goes at the end of the book rather than the front, and the generator labels it as such.
Where does this text go?
At the top of your manuscript, before chapter one. Copy each page in, keep them in order, then run the file through one of the formatters — the chapter detection will treat them as front matter rather than as chapters.