The back of the book is where your next sale is
Most authors stop thinking about the book at "The End". The manuscript is finished, the last scene lands, and everything after it gets treated as paperwork.
That is backwards. A reader who has just closed your book is the most likely buyer you will ever have. They are still inside the story, they know they liked it, and they are holding the one piece of marketing that reached them without costing you anything. The back matter is where you meet that reader, and in most self-published books it is blank.
What goes back there
The order below is the one readers expect. Not every book needs every page.
Author's note or afterword. Where the idea came from, what is true and what you changed, what you got wrong on purpose. Historical fiction almost demands one. Keep it to a page or two.
Acknowledgments. Either end of the book is defensible, but the back is more common in modern trade books and is the better choice for fiction. A list of names is a poor way to open a novel.
Also by this author. The page that sells the next book. More on it below.
A sample first chapter. If the next book exists, or exists enough to be honest about, the first chapter is the strongest offer you have. Label it clearly so nobody thinks the story is continuing.
Author biography. Short, third person, and about the person who wrote this book. A photo if you have a decent one.
The ask for a review. One short paragraph. More on this below too.
Where to find you. Newsletter, website, whatever you actually maintain.
Reading group questions. Eight to twelve open questions with no right answers. Book clubs are a real driver for literary and historical fiction, and a book with questions in the back gets picked over one without them.
Glossaries, timelines and maps. Fantasy, science fiction, technical books. If a reader had to keep track of something to follow the book, give them the reference.
Index. Nonfiction that people consult rather than read straight through. It is built from the composed page numbers, so it comes last.
In the Interior Formatter. Fill in your bio, your other titles, your review ask and your newsletter once, and the back matter is built into the print PDF and the EPUB in this order, with the rectos and blanks handled. Start a book → · about the Interior Formatter
The "also by" page, done properly
List a series in reading order, not publication order. You know which prequel came out fifth. Your reader does not, and a list that opens with a book they should read sixth is a list they will put down.
Group by series, name the series, and number the books. Standalones go in their own block. If a title is not out yet, say so and give the month rather than implying it is available now.
Keep it to titles and the shortest possible line about each. This is a signpost, not a catalog.
Ask for the review once, plainly
Reviews decide whether a stranger takes a chance on your book, and readers overwhelmingly do not know that they matter. So tell them, in one paragraph, and be specific: name the retailer, say a sentence or two is plenty, and say thank you.
What does not work is the plea. Anything about how hard it was to write the book, how much it would mean, how independent authors need help, reads as a hand on the reader's sleeve at the exact moment you wanted them to feel good about what they just finished. One short paragraph, no apology, no guilt.
A print reader cannot click
This is the trap. You write your back matter in a word processor, where every URL is live, and then it prints as gray underlined text that does nothing.
Everything in a printed book has to be typeable. A short, memorable domain beats a long one, a redirect you control beats a tracking link forty characters long, and a QR code beats both for a phone that is already in the reader's hand. Print the URL under the code anyway — some readers will not scan.
Every page you add moves the spine
Back matter is pages, and pages are page count, and page count is spine width. Add reading group questions and a sample chapter and you can move a book by ten or twelve pages, which is enough to change the spine on a thin paperback and put your cover text off-center.
So write the back matter before you finalize the cover, not after. The order is: finish the interior, get the real composed page count, then set the spine.
In an ebook it all works
An EPUB is where this material finally does what it was meant to do. The links are live, so "buy the next one" is one tap rather than a URL somebody has to retype. The sample chapter can end in a link to the actual store page. The review ask can point at the review form.
It also belongs at the end, where a reader physically lands after the last line — not buried in front matter nobody scrolls back to. This is the one place in publishing where the marketing page and the reader's attention are in the same spot at the same time.
In the Interior Formatter. One .docx makes both files, so the back matter you wrote is typeset into the print PDF and made clickable in the EPUB, and the final page count flows to the Cover Maker so the spine follows the pages you added. Start a book → · about the Interior Formatter
Make yours
Everything here is built into the tools, and they are free to use: name your book, bring your manuscript or your artwork, and work as long as you like. You only pay when you want the files without the preview watermark.
Next: Does your book need a table of contents? · Also in this guide: Front matter order · EPUB vs print PDF · Early reviews and ARCs