How to Optimize Your Back Matter

Evan Gow

July 24, 2026

In this guide, we cover how to structure the back matter of every book you publish - the call-to-action, the Link Collection behind it, and the branded link that ties it all together.

The moment a reader finishes your book is the moment they're most invested in you as an author.

They just spent hours in your world. They like your voice. They want more.

That's why the page right after “The End” is often the highest-converting placement for any ask you'll ever make - better than ads, better than social media, better than most emails.

Most authors waste it by either including nothing at all, or by stacking so many links that readers do nothing.

This guide covers a simple structure that fixes both problems.

Before any links or calls-to-action, the first thing that should follow “The End” is the first few chapters of another one of your books.

A reader who just finished your book is hooked. Give them somewhere to go next while that momentum is hot.

For example, at the end of your prequel short story, include the first few chapters of Book 1 to pull readers into the series.

Apply this to ALL of your books - both freebies (like your Reader Magnet ) and retail books. Your Reader Magnet is often a reader's first taste of your work, so it's the most important place of all to include a sample of a paid title.

It's tempting to stack every ask in your back matter: “buy the next book,” “leave a review,” “get my freebie,” “follow me on social media”...

When readers see a wall of links, they freeze - or worse, they close the book without clicking anything.

Instead, use ONE call-to-action with broad, generic wording. For example:

The wording is intentionally versatile. The single URL points to a Link Collection - a landing page with buttons for all of your different asks (magnet signup, next-book buy, review ask, etc.).

The reader makes one easy decision in the manuscript (“visit the page”), and picks the action that interests them once they're on the page.

As a bonus, generic wording means you can change what's behind the URL later - reorder buttons, swap the top ask at launch time - without ever touching the manuscript.

One generic page can't prioritize the right ask for every title.

The reader finishing Book 1 should see different priorities than the reader finishing Book 3:

• Book 1's Link Collection should have a call-to-action to review Book 1, a link to buy Book 2, a link to Book 1's extended epilogue, etc.
• Book 3's Link Collection might lead with the review ask for Book 3 and the preorder for Book 4.

Reviews are the clearest example of why this matters: the reader who just finished Book 2 should be asked to review Book 2 - not sent to a generic page that asks for a review of Book 1.

So create a dedicated Link Collection for each book you publish. That's the page your single back-matter URL points at.

Each book's Link Collection should give the reader a handful of high-intent options:

1) A Reader Magnet link (“Get my freebie”)

Growing your mailing list is usually the highest-value action long-term, since it lets you reach readers repeatedly instead of hoping they act in this one moment.

A reader who joins your list can be invited to your review team, told about your next launch, and pointed at your backlist - for years.

If you don't have a Reader Magnet yet, set one up here . (And here's a full guide to going from 0 to 1,000+ subscribers.)

2) The next book in the series (“Buy the next book”)

Book 1's page links to Book 2; Book 2's page links to Book 3.

Use a Universal Book Link so international readers land on the right storefront. A single-country Amazon link sends UK, Australian, and Canadian readers to the wrong store; a UBL localizes automatically.

If the next book isn't for sale yet, point at a preorder magnet or a “coming soon” item instead - then add the buy link to the collection when the title goes live, without touching the manuscript.

3) Review links (“Review the current book”)

“Review this book on Amazon” and “Review on Goodreads” belong on that book's page - this is the reason each title gets its own Link Collection.

Pro tip: append /amazon/review to the book's Universal Book Link (e.g. [your-ubl]/amazon/review) to send readers directly to the review page on their country's Amazon storefront. No hunting through the listing - one click and they're looking at the “Write a review” page.

4) The rest of the series (“See my other books”)

Add a link to a Book Collection - a series page with covers, reading order, and buy links - for readers who want to browse your whole catalog rather than take a single action.

The URL in your back matter should live on a domain that matches your pen name - not a retailer URL, not a third-party shortener, and not a raw storyoriginapp.com address.

There are a few reasons:

• Trust: links on [penname.com] feel like they come from you - in back matter, ads, newsletters, and social bios.
• Ownership: you own the URL. If you ever change tools, your links keep working because you control where they point.
• Click tracking: StoryOrigin tracks clicks on custom links, so you can see which books drive traffic.
• Retargeting: you can change the destination of a custom link anytime without breaking links you've already shared - or re-uploading a single manuscript. Readers with old copies of your book still land on your latest page.

You can use StoryOrigin's Website Builder as your primary author site, or keep an existing site and add a subdomain (e.g. books.[penname.com]) just for your author pages and redirects.

Give each book's Link Collection a branded link whose path matches the book it's printed in - e.g. [penname.com]/book-1-title inside Book 1 Title, [penname.com]/book-2-title inside Book 2 Title.

You'll always know which manuscript a click came from in your analytics, and each path points to the Link Collection tailored to that book.

There's also a compliance reason to keep retailer links out of the manuscript entirely: Apple Books prohibits links to competing bookstores in ebook files, and Kobo and others have rejected uploads for the same reason.

With one URL on your own domain, the retailer buttons live on the Link Collection - not in the ebook file - so you can upload the same file everywhere instead of maintaining a separate edition per retailer.

Many e-readers can't click embedded links. Readers often end up typing URLs manually on a phone or laptop instead.

So don't bury your call-to-action in linked text like “click here.” Spell out the full address (“[penname.com]/book-1-title”) so it works on every device.

This is another reason short, memorable, book-specific paths beat long tracking URLs - a reader can retype them from a Kindle screen without mistakes.

Here's the full setup, step-by-step, for each book you publish:

1. End the book with a sample of another title (freebies included)
2. Create a Link Collection for the book with buttons to: your Reader Magnet, the next book's Universal Book Link, the book's review page ([your-ubl]/amazon/review), and your Book Collection
3. Create a branded custom link on your domain with a path named for the book (e.g. /book-1-title) pointing at that Link Collection
4. Close the book with one call-to-action showing the full URL (e.g. “Get the next book (and freebies!) at [penname.com]/book-1-title”)

Repeat for every title in your backlist, and every book you publish going forward.

Every book you've written becomes a doorway into the rest of your catalog - and your mailing list - without a single wasted “The End.”

About the author: Evan is the founder of StoryOrigin, a marketing tool for authors