Front matter: How to arrange it and what to include

You’ve read countless books in your life, but chances are that if you were asked to list the typical order of a book’s front matter, you’d freeze and draw a blank.

That at least has been the experience of Fiona Raven and Glenna Collett, authors of Book Design Made Simple.

On their blog of the same name, they describe the usual order of front matter, what purpose each element serves, and how to format them.

Don’t be intimidated — they also tell you which ones overlap so you can skip the nonessentials.

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