Tips for Newbies: Anatomy of a Book

So, you’ve decided to self publish a paperback using POD (Print on Demand) technology. Here are some basics you need to know in order to fill out the forms properly. [My comments are based on using CreateSpace as a POD distributor]

What are the PARTS of a book?

There’s the cover—it includes front, back, and spine, all in one file. There’s a formula to calculate the spine thickness once you know the page count.

There’s the interior—which is everything inside the cover. The interior is usually broken down into 3 main parts: front matter, text or body, and appendices.

Front Matter is the stuff in front of your story (duh). It should include a title page, copyright page, and table of contents. It may also include a dedication, acknowledgement, and prologue or author’s note.

The text or body section is your story. This is the stuff that goes from “Once upon a time” to “The End”.

Anything that appears after “The End” will be referred to as appendices (even if not labeled an Appendix). The most common is an “About the Author” page.

Who are the PEOPLE associated with your book?

The Author is YOU, the person who wrote the book. The copyright notice should be in the name of the author.

The Publisher can be the person/company handling preparing your book for print, or it can be an Imprint name you pick yourself. The ISBN should be in the name of the Imprint or Publisher (if you don’t have an imprint).  My imprint is Blue Dragon Press. I have a logo and a website under that name.

A Contributor is someone else who helped with the book that you want to acknowledge. It may be an Editor, a Cover Designer, a Photographer, etc.

Next we will go into differences in formatting between the parts, and anatomies of particular pages. For example, you don’t start the page numbering with the front matter. The front matter is numbered with small Roman numerals: I, ii, iii, iv.  Then the Arabic numbers start with the body: 1,2,3.

[paypal-donation] if this has helped you, please show your support