Spend some time familiarizing yourself with the first component of a book and then move onto the second component.

The Body

This is the main part of the book, the meat if you like. It is split down into chapters or parts, depending on how your book is laid out and what kind of segmentation is required.  The point behind using any type of segmentation is to help the reader.

The Opening Pages of the Parts or Chapters

Any chapter or any part of a book has opening pages and the layout of these is down, mostly, to design.

Epilogue

This tends to be a continuation of the main part of the book and is usually written in the author’s voice. The epilogue gives the book and its readers closure.

Afterword

This may be penned by the author or it could be by another person; the afterword is meant to place the work into a much bigger context.

Conclusion

The book conclusion is a summary, usually short, of the most salient points of the book, the wrapping up if you like.

The Back

This comes after the main section of the book and tends to contain any citations, any notes or any other similar elements relating to the book.

Postscript

This is usually written by the author and will contain things that the author considers to be relevant afterthoughts to the main story.

Appendix

Sometimes known as the addendum, this contains supplemental elements that relate to the main part of the book.

Chronology

This is a list of events in chronological order and could be used in place of an appendix or it could also be placed into the front component of the book – this will depend on how important this list is to how the reader understands the book.

Notes

Some notes can be placed at the bottom of pages where required but, mostly, they are placed in endnotes at the back of the book. They go after the appendix and before any references or bibliography.

Bibliography

This contains a list of articles or books that have been cited in the main part of the book as well as any works that the author recommends or has consulted in the course of writing. This must follow a specific format for presenting the information and the publisher will advise you of this. If not, stick to using Chicago Manual of Style.

Contributor List

This can also be put at the front of the book if required. It is a list of those who contributed to the book in some way and is presented in the format of first name, last name but in alphabetical order by last name.

Index

An index is a list of institutions, people, places, ideas, events, concepts, and all the works that have been cited in the book and must have a page number where each appearance is in the book. This is the last thing to be prepared, after the typesetting, and tends to be written by a professional indexer with some author input.

Most of this applies to nonfiction books only, where citations and references, etc., are more important. You can play around with this format to a certain extent but, overall, presenting a nonfiction book in this format will look far more professional.