How to Format a Reference List or Bibliography in Your Book

A reference list or bibliography in a book goes in the back matter (the pages after the main text ends). Convention places it after any notes and before the index. Entries run alphabetically by author surname, each with a hanging indent: first line at the margin, lines below it indented. Pick one set of citation rules and apply it consistently.

What Is a Bibliography in a Book, and Is It the Same as a Reference List?

A bibliography, a reference list, and a works cited page all do the same basic job. They list the sources a book drew on, alphabetically by author surname, in enough detail for a reader to find each one. The three names come from different citation styles, the rulebooks that govern how sources are recorded.

One practical difference hides behind the names. A reference list or works cited page contains only the works you actually cited in the text. A bibliography can go further and also include works you consulted but never quoted directly. For a self-published book, the habit matters more than the label. Record every source in full while you write, and decide later how much of the list to print.

Which name your book uses follows from how its citations point to sources. Publishing has three common setups.

Notes and Bibliography

The Chicago Manual of Style uses the term “bibliography” in its notes-and-bibliography system. A footnote at the bottom of the page or an endnote at the end of the chapter or book cites each source in shortened form, often just the author’s surname, a short title, and a page number. The bibliography at the back of the book then holds the full details of every source. We covered the notes side of this pairing in how to format footnotes and endnotes; this post covers the list those notes point to.

In-Text Author-Date Citations

Chicago’s second system, author-date, uses no notes. Instead, the author’s surname and year appear in brackets in the text, and the list at the back is headed “References.” APA style, the American Psychological Association’s rulebook for the social and behavioral sciences, uses the same name. MLA style, the Modern Language Association’s rulebook for literature and language study, works the same way but pairs the surname with a page number instead of a year. It calls the list “works cited.”

Numbered Citations in Science Writing

Science writing often uses an alternative setup: a numbered system. Each source gets a number in the order it is first cited, and only that number appears in the text, in brackets or as a small raised numeral. The full list, again usually headed “References,” sits at the end of the book. In this system the sources are listed in citation order (1, 2, 3), not alphabetically by author name.

Which Citation Style Should a Self-Published Book Use?

Any citation style works for a self-published book. Readers must be able to find each source, and every entry must follow the same pattern. Consistency matters more than which rulebook you pick.

Traditional publishers usually dictate the style, and academic publishers in particular hold their authors to a specific one. Self-publishers choose for themselves. The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) referencing guide points non-fiction indie authors to the Chicago Manual of Style. It treats Chicago as the standard reference for general non-fiction in North America. Chicago is now in its 18th edition (2024), and the rules and examples in this post follow it. If you have no reason to choose otherwise, Chicago’s notes-and-bibliography pattern is a sound default.

When we check a reference list at ebookpbook, the working test is simple. Can a reader take any entry and locate the exact work? And do the entries match each other in ordering, punctuation, and detail? If both answers are yes, the list does its job, whichever style it follows. Did your manuscript go through a copyedit? Then your editor’s style sheet (their record of every spelling, punctuation, and formatting decision) will note the citation choices. Keep the bibliography aligned with it.

What Details Does Each Type of Source Need?

Every bibliography entry needs four things at minimum: who created the work, what it is called, who published it, and when. The exact details shift a little with the type of source. Below is a basic bibliography format example for each common source type, following the Chicago pattern. Other styles arrange the same details in a different order, or use different punctuation to group them. Every style guide gives fuller examples for the harder cases (multiple authors or editors, new editions, translations), but everything builds on the basics here.

The Basic Entry for Each Source Type

• A whole book: author, title in italics, publisher, and year. Example: Rivera, Elena. The Field Guide to Small Presses. Ferndale Press, 2024. For a book with no publishing company behind it, Chicago’s guidance is to write “Self-published” in place of the publisher name.
• A chapter in an edited book: the chapter author, chapter title in quotation marks, the book title in italics, the editor’s name, the page range, publisher, and year. Example: Okafor, Daniel. “Mapping the Backlist.” In The Working Author, edited by Priya Nair, 44–61. Ferndale Press, 2023.
• A newspaper or magazine article: author, article title in quotation marks, the publication name in italics, and the full date. Example: Shaw, Marianne. “The Slow Return of the Book Club.” The Coastal Times, March 14, 2025.
• A web page: the author if one is named, the page title in quotation marks, the site name, the date published or last updated, and the URL. Example: Torres, Amaia. “How Libraries Choose Stock.” Shelf Notes, June 2, 2025. https://www.example.com/libraries-stock.
• A podcast episode: the host, the episode title in quotation marks, the show name, and the date. Example: Nair, Priya. “Why Backlists Sell.” The Working Author Show, podcast, April 8, 2025.
• An interview: the interviewee, the interviewer, the date, and where a reader can hear or read it. Example: Rivera, Elena. Interview by Marianne Shaw. The Coastal Times, May 3, 2025.

Title Case or Sentence Case?

One convention worth knowing: book and chapter titles in your entries usually take title case (the main words capitalized), but sentence case is fine too. Once again, consistency is what matters. No publishing platform checks or verifies a bibliography, so none of this is a rejection risk. It is about the reader’s experience of a tidy, trustworthy list.

Protecting Web Links in a Book That Stays in Print

Two habits protect the online entries in a book that may stay in print for years. Where a source offers a DOI (digital object identifier, a permanent link that never changes), use it instead of the URL. Academic journals assign one to almost every article. And if a web page shows no publication date, record an access date (the date you last viewed the page). Consider saving an archived copy too, so a future edition can point somewhere that still works.

Check your typing as well. Web addresses are easy to mistype, and one wrong character sends the reader nowhere. Test every URL in your manuscript before you publish. Then click through each one again in the finished ebook, where the links are live.

How Do You Put a Bibliography in Alphabetical Order?

Bibliography entries run A to Z by the first author’s surname. The notes-and-bibliography and author-date styles agree on that principle and differ only on small points. The rules below follow the current Chicago edition.

The Alphabetizing Rules

• Alphabetize word by word. The comparison stops at the end of each word. A shorter first word therefore files before a longer one that starts the same way: “Van Dyke” comes before “Vance,” because “Van” ends before “Vance” does.
• Surnames with particles (“de,” “van,” “von,” “La”): practice follows the person’s own usage. “Van Dyke” files under V, but Ludwig van Beethoven files under B. Use the form printed on the author’s own books, and apply it the same way every time.
• Several works by the same author: repeat the author’s name for each entry (current Chicago no longer replaces repeated names with a long dash). Then order those works alphabetically by title, ignoring an opening “A,” “An,” or “The.” That is the bibliography rule; in an author-date reference list, the same author’s works run by publication date instead, earliest first.
• Multiple authors: file the entry under the first author’s surname, and reverse only that first name. Example (four authors): Rivera, Elena, Daniel Okafor, Priya Nair, and Marianne Shaw. Chicago now lists up to six authors in an entry. For seven or more, list the first three followed by “et al.” (Latin for “and others”). Example: Torres, Amaia, Priya Nair, Marianne Shaw, et al.
• No author: file the entry by its title, again ignoring an opening “A,” “An,” or “The.”
• An organization as author: file under the organization’s full name, spelled out, not its initials.

Where Does the Bibliography Go, and How Should It Look on the Page?

The bibliography belongs in the back matter, after any appendixes and endnotes and before the index. An appendix is extra supporting material, such as documents or tables. Chicago’s conventional order runs appendix, endnotes, glossary, bibliography, index. Like other major sections, the bibliography normally opens on a right-hand page. For the wider picture, see our guide to front and back matter.

Setting the Hanging Indent in Print and Ebook

On the page, every entry takes a hanging indent. The first line starts at the margin, and every following line sits indented beneath it. That shape is what lets a scanning eye pick out each surname. In Word, open the Paragraph settings and choose “Hanging” from the “Special” indentation menu. The option carries the same name on Windows and Mac. Page-layout programs such as InDesign build the same shape into a paragraph style. They pair a left indent with a negative first-line indent, so the whole list can be styled in one move.

Here is one tip from our own typesetting work. If your entries contain URLs, set the bibliography ragged right rather than justified. Ragged right keeps a straight left edge and an uneven right edge; justified straightens both edges. Justified setting forces long web addresses into bad line breaks. The software may add a line-end hyphen that looks like part of the address. Or it stretches the line with wide gaps between letters and around punctuation, because it finds nowhere clean to break the entry. Ragged right sidesteps both problems.

The ebook edition handles the same list differently. A reflowable ebook has no fixed page. The hanging indent lives in the file’s internal styling and reshapes itself at whatever text size the reader chooses. URLs can also become live, tappable links in the ebook edition, which is a genuine upgrade on a printed address.

Finally, if you hire a professional formatter, you do not need to explain any of these conventions to them. Formatters work with hanging indents, back-matter ordering, and citation layouts every week. Hand over a finished, internally consistent list, name the style you followed, and the layout side is their job.

What the Bibliography Adds to Printing Cost

A bibliography adds printed pages, and print-on-demand platforms (which print each copy as it is ordered) charge per page. Run KDP’s printing cost formula as a worked example. On Amazon.com, a standard-trim black-ink paperback of 110 to 828 pages costs $1.00 plus $0.012 per page to print. A 10-page bibliography therefore adds about $0.12 to each printed copy. (Black-ink paperbacks of 24 to 110 pages cost a flat $2.30 per copy, so extra pages add nothing there.) Other print-on-demand platforms also price by the page. In practice a trimmed list saves only a few cents per copy. So the earlier decision about how much of the list to print is about the reader, not the printing bill. Keep every source a curious reader might chase, and drop routine background reading.

A tidy bibliography comes down to a few habits. Capture the right details for each source as you write, and keep every entry in the same pattern. Alphabetize by surname, and let the hanging indent do the visual work. Choose a style once and stay consistent. The back of your book will stand up beside anything a traditional press produces.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does a bibliography include works not cited?

A bibliography can include works you consulted but never cited directly, alongside the works you did cite. A reference list or works cited page is stricter: it contains only the works actually cited in the text.

Are bibliographies supposed to be alphabetical?

Yes: bibliography entries run A to Z by the first author’s surname. Works with no author file under their title, ignoring an opening “A,” “An,” or “The.” Organizations as authors file under their full spelled-out name.

Where should a bibliography go in a book?

A bibliography goes in the back matter, after any appendixes and endnotes and before the index. Chicago’s conventional order is appendix, endnotes, glossary, bibliography, index, and the section normally opens on a right-hand page.

Do novels or memoirs need a bibliography?

Most novels do not need a bibliography. But any book built on research, whether a memoir, narrative non-fiction, or a historical novel, can include a short “Sources” section or an author’s note instead. List the key works behind the story there, in the same consistent format.

Can citation software format my bibliography for me?

Word’s built-in citation tool and dedicated reference managers can assemble bibliography entries in a chosen style. They are a reasonable starting point. Check the output by hand, though. Automated entries often arrive with inconsistent capitalization, missing details, or duplicated records. The final consistency check is still yours.