Your Acknowledgement Page Matters

One of the most important pages in a book in terms of an author’s personal brand is also one of the most overlooked.

It’s not the cover.

It’s not the “About the Author” page.

It’s not their smiling photograph.

It’s the Acknowledgements page.

The Acknowledgements page offers a window into an author’s character that you won’t find anywhere else in the book. It’s the place where the author has the opportunity to be fully themselves and to show that they are self-aware, humble, and generous. 

Or not.

The top-notch nonfiction authors I admire—Michael Lewis, Malcolm Gladwell, and so on—write acknowledgements that go on for multiple pages. They name everyone they can, from their romantic partner to the lowest-level proofreader, and they lavish praise on them all. They also take pains to own any and all errors in the book, and they do all of it with good cheer, even a sense of self-deprecating humor. For example, in the Acknowledgements for Caffeinated: How Our Daily Habit Helps, Hurts and Hooks Us, Murray Carpenter wrote, “I am also indebted to all of my friends and cousins, and strangers on trains and planes and in coffee shops and bars, who served as litmus tests to see if stories were interesting or mundane.”

Authors who write little, or don’t include Acknowledgements at all, miss an opportunity and, to my mind, tarnish their reputation. Even the best authors have help, and a lot of it. As an admirer of a book, you can mine the Acknowledgements page for the name of the author’s agent and editor—helpful data if you want to sell a similar book.

The Acknowledgements page is an author’s chance to share the credit for the best parts of a book, and to show that they understand that just because their name is on the cover doesn’t mean they created the work on their own. A book is a deeply collaborative enterprise. I always think more highly of authors who wave this banner publicly—and less highly of those who seem reluctant to share credit or take blame.