Front matter, parts, and back matter

Front matter at the start of your manuscript is recognized automatically when each page is separated by a page break: a title page (your title, an optional subtitle line, and “by Your Name”), a copyright page (© and ISBN lines), a dedication (“For…”, “To…”, “In memory of…”), and an epigraph (a quotation with a “—Author” attribution line). Each one fills the matching field on the Settings step and is rendered as a properly styled page — not as Chapter One.

Section headings with these names are also recognized, and will never be numbered as chapters: Introduction, Preface, Foreword, Afterword, Author’s Note, Appendix, Glossary, Bibliography, Index, Notes, References, Works Cited, Acknowledgments, About the Author, and Also By.

Publishing with an ISBN? Put it in the ISBN field on the Settings step’s Metadata tab — it prints on the copyright page and is embedded in the ebook’s file details. An ISBN line already on your manuscript’s copyright page is also kept as-is. (Kindle doesn’t need an ISBN at all, and print-on-demand printers will give you one free.)

A line like Part One, Part II — The Descent or Part 3: After becomes a part divider: its own page, the part name centered on it, always starting on a right-hand page, with no page number or running head — the way a printed book does it. The chapters under it keep their own numbering, so Part Two can open above Chapter Nine.

The divider page usually has nothing on it but the part name, and that’s fine — it’s the one kind of section that’s meant to be empty. Anything you do put under it (an epigraph, a line of scene-setting) is centered on the same page.

Missed one, or got one you didn’t want? On the Chapters step, set any section’s role to Part divider — or off it — like any other role. In the Contents page and the ebook’s table of contents, parts appear as headings with their chapters listed beneath.

Under Settings → Pages you can switch on the pages a finished book usually ends with — and one it usually begins with:

• Half title — your title alone on the very first page, before the full title page. Standard in printed books, and generated for you.
• Contents — linked in the ebook, with real page numbers in the PDF. Usual in nonfiction; most novels leave it off. If your manuscript had a typed contents page, this is switched on already.
• Ask for a review — the short back-matter page nearly every self-published book carries. Leave the box empty for standard wording, or write your own.
• Mailing list — an invitation plus your sign-up address, which is tappable in the ebook and printed in full in the PDF.
• Acknowledgments, About the author (with an optional photo) and Also by this author, which can carry store links.

Every one of these can be dragged between the front and back of the book on the same tab, and each is typeset as a proper page rather than as a chapter.