How much of my book does Amazon's Look Inside show?

KDP's reading samples are 10% for a reflowable or fixed-layout ebook and 20% for a paperback or hardcover. The percentage is measured from the start of the file, not from chapter one, so anything you put before the story is inside the sample.

Can I change the Look Inside percentage?

No. KDP states that reading sample percentages cannot be adjusted. You can ask support to remove the sample entirely, or to adjust page samples in specific cases such as hiding spoilers, but you cannot set it to a number you prefer. The only variable under your control is what occupies those pages.

Does front matter count towards the sample?

Yes. The preview begins at the beginning of the file, so the title page, copyright page, dedication, epigraph, table of contents and any front-matter note are all inside the percentage. A book with eight pages of front matter has spent part of its shop window before the reader reaches a sentence of the story.

How much front matter should a novel have before chapter one?

As little as carries the necessary information. A half title, title page, copyright page and possibly a dedication is enough for most novels — four to six pages. Everything else, including acknowledgements, author's notes and long series lists, reads perfectly well at the back and does not consume the sample.

Should the table of contents come before or after the text?

For a novel with chapters called Chapter One through Chapter Thirty, a contents page tells the reader nothing and costs sample space, so many novels place it at the back or omit it in print. Non-fiction is the opposite case: the contents page is what convinces a browsing reader the book covers what they need, and it belongs at the front.

Does the sample matter more for ebooks or print?

The percentage is smaller for ebooks, at 10% against 20%, so front matter is proportionally twice as expensive there. In practice both matter, because the same file usually produces both editions and the front matter is shared.

What should the last page of the sample do?

Land in the middle of something. A sample that ends at a natural pause invites the reader to stop; one that ends mid-scene is the argument for buying. You cannot control precisely where it falls, but you can know roughly where 10% lands and make sure that region of the book is one you would want a stranger to be interrupted in.

What Amazon's sample shows, and what your front matter costs you

Amazon shows a stranger the beginning of your book. Not the beginning of your story: the beginning of your file.

KDP’s reading samples run to 10% of an ebook and 20% of a paperback, measured from page one, and the percentages cannot be adjusted. Whatever occupies those pages is your shop window, and every page of front matter is a page of it spent.

The arithmetic

A 320-page novel. Ten percent is about 32 pages of the ebook.

Now suppose the front matter runs: half title, title page, copyright page, dedication, epigraph, a two-page table of contents, and an author’s note about the historical background. That is nine pages before chapter one.

The reader deciding whether to buy your novel gets 32 pages, and nine of them — 28% of the sample — are administrative. They spend a fifth of their attention on your copyright notice and the name of someone they have never met.

The same book with a half title, title page, copyright page and dedication spends four pages and hands over 28 pages of story instead of 23. Five extra pages does not sound like much. It is most of a chapter, and in a sample it is the difference between stopping at a scene break and stopping inside one.

What actually has to be at the front

Very little is obligatory. The genuinely load-bearing pages:

The title page, because a reader needs to know what they are looking at. The copyright page, which carries the notice, the edition and the ISBN — required in practice, and one page. That is close to the whole list.

Conventional and defensible, at one page each: a half title, a dedication.

Everything else has a good home at the back. Acknowledgements are read by people who finished the book, which is exactly who reaches the back matter. An author’s note about research or historical liberties is more interesting after the story than before it, and putting it first tells a browsing reader that the book requires homework. A long also by this author list belongs at the back where it is a next purchase rather than a delay.

The front matter guide covers the full conventional order. The point here is narrower: order is not the only question, and side is a decision with a measurable cost.

The table of contents

For a novel, a contents page listing Chapter One through Chapter Thirty conveys no information. It exists because the software offered it.

In an EPUB the navigation document is separate and required — that is the machine-readable table of contents the reading system uses for its own menu, and it does not occupy pages in the flow. What costs you sample space is a visible contents page in the text, and for most novels it can go to the back or be dropped from the print edition, which is the historical convention anyway.

Non-fiction reverses completely. A browsing reader is trying to find out whether the book answers their question, and the contents page is the fastest possible answer. It is one of the most persuasive pages in the sample and it belongs at the front. Our table of contents guide covers the mechanics for both cases.

The epigraph problem

An epigraph before chapter one is the most expensive page in most novels, because it is a page of someone else’s writing standing between a reader and yours.

Sometimes it earns the place — it sets a tone that the first chapter then confirms. Often it is there because literary novels have them. If it is the second kind, it costs a page of your sample and hands the visitor a quotation from a better-known writer as their first impression of your book.

Chapter epigraphs are a different matter, since by then the reader is inside the story rather than deciding whether to enter it. Epigraphs and quotes also covers the permissions question, which is a real one for anything still in copyright.

Where the sample ends

You cannot set where the preview stops, but you can know roughly where it falls and treat that region as a place that matters.

Ten percent of a 90,000-word novel is about 9,000 words — the end of chapter two or the start of chapter three in most books. Read that passage as a stranger would: not for prose quality but for whether being interrupted there would annoy you enough to buy the book.

A sample ending on a resolved scene is a natural place to stop, and a reader who stops naturally is a reader who closes the tab. A sample ending mid-scene is unresolved, and unresolved is what the button is for.

This is not a reason to restructure the novel. It is a reason to know where the line falls, and occasionally a reason to move a chapter break by a few hundred words.

The print edition shows twice as much

Paperbacks and hardcovers get 20%, which sounds like a reprieve and mostly means the same front matter costs proportionally less.

The reason to care is that print and ebook usually share one manuscript. Trimming the front matter improves both, and the version that survives is normally the one built for the tighter constraint.

In Nueel the same document produces both, so front matter is one decision rather than two, and moving an author’s note from the front to the back is a single change reflected in the EPUB, the PDF and the preview alike.

Everything about a book’s marketing is expensive and uncertain except this: the number of pages between a stranger and your first sentence, which is free to change and entirely yours to decide.

Sources

KDP, Read Sample (Look Inside the Book) — 10% for ebooks and 20% for paperback and hardcover, and that sample percentages cannot be adjusted

Common questions

How much of my book does Amazon's Look Inside show?: KDP's reading samples are 10% for a reflowable or fixed-layout ebook and 20% for a paperback or hardcover. The percentage is measured from the start of the file, not from chapter one, so anything you put before the story is inside the sample.
Can I change the Look Inside percentage?: No. KDP states that reading sample percentages cannot be adjusted. You can ask support to remove the sample entirely, or to adjust page samples in specific cases such as hiding spoilers, but you cannot set it to a number you prefer. The only variable under your control is what occupies those pages.
Does front matter count towards the sample?: Yes. The preview begins at the beginning of the file, so the title page, copyright page, dedication, epigraph, table of contents and any front-matter note are all inside the percentage. A book with eight pages of front matter has spent part of its shop window before the reader reaches a sentence of the story.
How much front matter should a novel have before chapter one?: As little as carries the necessary information. A half title, title page, copyright page and possibly a dedication is enough for most novels — four to six pages. Everything else, including acknowledgements, author's notes and long series lists, reads perfectly well at the back and does not consume the sample.
Should the table of contents come before or after the text?: For a novel with chapters called Chapter One through Chapter Thirty, a contents page tells the reader nothing and costs sample space, so many novels place it at the back or omit it in print. Non-fiction is the opposite case: the contents page is what convinces a browsing reader the book covers what they need, and it belongs at the front.
Does the sample matter more for ebooks or print?: The percentage is smaller for ebooks, at 10% against 20%, so front matter is proportionally twice as expensive there. In practice both matter, because the same file usually produces both editions and the front matter is shared.
What should the last page of the sample do?: Land in the middle of something. A sample that ends at a natural pause invites the reader to stop; one that ends mid-scene is the argument for buying. You cannot control precisely where it falls, but you can know roughly where 10% lands and make sure that region of the book is one you would want a stranger to be interrupted in.