How to write the acknowledgments in a book

The acknowledgments page has two kinds of reader. The people named in it read every word and check their own name twice. Everyone else decides in a second whether to skip it. Write the page for the first group, and put it where it costs the second group least.

In most novels that means the back of the book, directly after the last chapter. In a lot of nonfiction it means the front, after the preface. You will find both answers in authoritative places, and they disagree with each other.

Front or back: what the references actually say

The Chicago Manual of Style changed its position in its 18th edition, published in 2024. The publisher’s summary of changes says Chicago “now prefers placing acknowledgments in the back matter rather than in the front matter for most types of books”, and notes that the manual itself is an exception. Chicago’s older Q&A still allows both: in the front, as a section of its own or as part of the preface, or in the back, where “it works well to place them immediately after the final chapter.”

Amazon still gives the older answer. KDP’s help page on front and back matter lists eight front matter elements in order, and acknowledgments is the eighth, after the preface and before the prologue and introduction. The same help center’s Kindle Create guide lists Acknowledgements as a back matter page type. So the two sources a self-publisher is most likely to check point in opposite directions. Each is describing a convention, and neither is a requirement.

How it usually works out in practice:

• Fiction: at the back. The story should start without a page of names in front of it, and the people who reach the back are the ones who finished the book. Those are also the readers most likely to care who helped write it.
• Nonfiction: either. Academic and research-heavy books still often thank people at the front. There, the acknowledgments act as credentials: they show the archives, interviewees and specialist readers behind the claims. If yours do that job, the front is reasonable.
• Memoir: usually the back. The people thanked are often characters in the book, and meeting them by name before the story introduces them gives the story away.

One part of this is not a matter of taste: the acknowledgments go in one place. A thank-you at the front and a second one at the back reads as a draft nobody tidied. If your preface already thanks people in its closing paragraph, that paragraph is your acknowledgments. Chicago allows exactly that arrangement. The full order of both ends of the book is in front matter, in order and back matter.

The front costs you sample pages

This is the reason to think about placement beyond taste. KDP’s Look Inside sample is 10% of a Kindle ebook and 20% of a paperback, and KDP states that the percentages cannot be adjusted. Front matter is part of the book, so it uses up the sample before the story does.

Take a 300-page novel. Ten percent of the ebook is about 30 pages. Give it a half title, a title page, a copyright page, a dedication and three pages of acknowledgments, and seven of those 30 pages are spent before chapter one. A browsing reader gets the names of your beta readers in place of most of a chapter. Move the acknowledgments to the back and the same reader gets three more pages of story, which can be the difference between the sample stopping at a scene break and stopping in the middle of a scene. The arithmetic for the rest of the front matter is in what Amazon’s sample shows.

The same reasoning is why nonfiction can afford the front. A browsing reader of a history book is judging whether the research is serious, and a page that thanks two archives and a named specialist is evidence that it is.

Spelling: acknowledgments or acknowledgements

Both spellings are correct. The difference is regional:

• Acknowledgments is the American spelling. Chicago uses it, and Cambridge’s American dictionary gives it as the headword with acknowledgement as the alternative.
• Acknowledgements is the usual British spelling. Oxford’s learner’s dictionary gives it as the headword with acknowledgment as the alternative.

Amazon’s help pages use both: the KDP front matter list spells it without the e, and the Kindle Create page spells it with one. That is not a reason to mix them in your own book.

The rule is to match the rest of the book. A novel spelled color and realize gets Acknowledgments. Then check the three places the word appears: the section heading, the table of contents entry, and the running head if the design prints one. A heading spelled one way and a contents entry spelled the other is easy to miss and easy for a reader to notice.

Whom to thank, and in what order

The usual order goes from professional to personal. It is a convention, and its only real advantage is that readers recognize it:

1. The people who made the book possible commercially: agent, editor, publisher. A self-published author’s version of this is the freelance editor, the copyeditor and the proofreader.
2. The people who made it look like a book: cover designer, illustrator, cartographer, formatter.
3. The people who made it right: early and beta readers, sensitivity readers, the nurse who checked the hospital scenes, the historian who caught the anachronism.
4. Institutions: libraries, archives, grants, residencies, a writing group. If a grant or fellowship paid for the work, check the award terms, which sometimes specify the wording of the credit.
5. Friends and family. A partner or spouse is often the last name on the page.

Thank people for something specific. “Thanks to Dana for her help” is a line anyone could write. “Dana read the second draft in a weekend and told me, correctly, that the middle third was the same argument three times” thanks Dana for something and tells every other reader something true about how the book was made.

Some people should be left out, or asked first. In memoir and narrative nonfiction, a source who spoke to you on condition of anonymity can be identified by their thank-you. Thanking someone for “the long conversation in Duluth” can name them as clearly as their surname would. Ask anyone whose appearance on the page could cause them trouble.

Readers are often thanked last of all, in a closing line. That is fine as one sentence. As a paragraph it starts to read as a newsletter pitch, and the back matter already has a page for that.

How long, and in what tone

Nothing sets a length. A page or two is typical for a novel. A nonfiction book built on two hundred interviews may need five, and in that case the length tells the reader something about the research. At the back, length costs nothing but the reader’s patience. At the front it costs sample pages, as above.

At a trade trim a page holds roughly 280 words, and the section starts on a fresh page, usually a right-hand one. So a 600-word acknowledgments section is three pages in print, and four if a blank left-hand page is inserted ahead of it. The word count tool gives the per-trim figure for your own text.

The voice should be yours, the same one the book is written in. A funny novel can have a funny acknowledgments page. What reads badly in any genre:

• Private jokes with no context. One is affectionate. Six of them shut the reader out of the page.
• Overstatement. If every helper was “tireless” and “without whom this book would not exist”, the words stop meaning anything by the third name.
• Score-settling. Thanking the people who doubted you puts them on the page too.
• Names you have not checked. The people named in the acknowledgments are the readers most likely to find an error in it. Check every spelling against the person’s own usage, including accents and hyphens.

Two short samples

These are ours, written for this guide, not quoted from any published book. The names are invented.

A novel, at the back:

Thanks first to Ruth Anand, who edited this book twice and was right both times, and to Marcus Lee for a cover that made me want to read it. Teodora, Sam and the Tuesday group read the draft with the ending I am glad you did not get to see. Dr. Hana Okafor answered forty questions about what a ruptured spleen actually feels like and did not ask why. And Ben, who heard every chapter read aloud before anyone else did: this one is yours as much as mine.

A nonfiction book, at the front:

This book draws on interviews with fifty-one former mill workers, nine of whom asked not to be named. I am grateful to all of them. The staff of the county historical society found records I had been told did not exist. A grant from the Harlan Valley Fund paid for two summers of research. Professor Ellen Marsh read the manuscript in full and corrected more than I would like to admit. The errors that remain are mine.

The second sample ends with a sentence that is standard in nonfiction for a reason: it limits the credit you have just given. Your experts helped, and they are not responsible for what you did with their help. Fiction rarely needs the sentence, because nobody checks a novel’s facts against the people who helped with it.

Later editions

Acknowledgments change after publication. The proofreader you forgot remembers, or the second edition owes a debt to readers who reported errors. An ebook can be corrected and uploaded again. A print edition needs a new interior file, and if the change adds a page, the page count moves and the spine width on the cover moves with it. Keep the acknowledgments in the same master file as the rest of the book, and they cost nothing to fix.

In Nueel, Acknowledgements is a back-matter section role. A Word file whose thank-you page imported as “Chapter 41” can be given that role in one menu: it loses its chapter number and opening and moves into the back matter. That is our product, so weigh it as a pitch. The free preview typesets your first chapter without an account, and pricing is public.

The page is short, and it is the one most of your closest readers will turn to first. Get the names right, and put the page where a stranger who has not started the book yet does not have to read it first.

Sources

• The Chicago Manual of Style, What’s new in the 18th edition — sections 1.47 and 1.65 changed; Chicago “now prefers placing acknowledgments in the back matter rather than in the front matter for most types of books”, with CMOS itself an exception. Read 8 October 2026.
• The Chicago Manual of Style Online, Q&A, “None of the Above” — acknowledgments may go in the front matter, as a standalone item or part of the preface, or in the back, best immediately after the final chapter. Read 8 October 2026.
• Amazon KDP, Format Front Matter, Body Matter, and Back Matter — front matter order with acknowledgments eighth, after the preface; “Many of the elements described below are optional.” Read 8 October 2026.
• Amazon KDP, Prepare Reflowable and Print Books with Kindle Create — Acknowledgements offered as a back matter page type. Read 8 October 2026.
• Amazon KDP, Read Sample (Look Inside the Book) — 10% for ebooks, 20% for paperback and hardcover; percentages cannot be adjusted. Read 8 October 2026.
• Cambridge Dictionary, acknowledgment, and Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries, acknowledgement — both spellings listed, with the American and British headwords respectively. Read 8 October 2026.

Common questions

Do acknowledgments go at the front or the back of a book?

Either is correct. The Chicago Manual of Style's 18th edition (2024) now prefers the back matter for most books, placed straight after the last chapter. KDP's formatting help still lists them in the front matter, after the preface. In practice novels put them at the back and many nonfiction books keep them at the front. Pick one place and use only that one.

Is it acknowledgments or acknowledgements?

Both are correct. Acknowledgments, without the e, is the American spelling and the one Chicago uses. Acknowledgements is the usual British spelling and is the headword in Oxford's learner's dictionary. Use the one that matches the rest of the book's spelling, and make the heading, the contents entry and any running head agree.

How long should the acknowledgments be?

There is no rule. A page or two is typical for a novel, and nonfiction built on interviews, archives or grants can run longer. Length starts to matter when the section is at the front, because every page there comes before chapter one in the store's preview.

Who do you thank first in acknowledgments?

The usual order is professional first and personal last: agent and editor, then the people who worked on the book, then early readers and experts, then friends and family. A partner or spouse is often the last name. This is a convention and not a rule. Its only advantage is that readers expect it.

Does front matter count toward Amazon's Look Inside sample?

Yes. KDP's reading sample is 10% of an ebook and 20% of a paperback or hardcover, and the percentage cannot be adjusted. Front matter is part of the book, so three pages of acknowledgments before chapter one are three pages of sample a browsing reader spends not reading the story.