A dedication is a short personal inscription offering the book to someone. It sits on its own page in the front matter, after the copyright page, and it is conventionally set on a right-hand page.
It is also the one element of a book where the authorities deliberately decline to give you rules, and understanding why is more useful than any template.
The Page That Belongs to You
New Hart's Rules is the only style authority that says much about dedications at all, and what it says is about ownership rather than form:
"The dedication is a highly personal expression on the part of the author. The publisher usually accepts its wording and content unchanged, and its design is usually subject to the author's approval when that of the rest of the book is not. Whenever possible the dedication falls on a recto (usually p. v), but if, for reasons of space, it must be relocated to a verso, one must be chosen that gives it sufficient prominence (for example the last verso preceding the first page of the text)."
Two things in that are worth noticing. The publisher accepts the wording unchanged, which is unusual in a book where everything else is negotiated. And its design is subject to your approval when the rest of the book's is not.
That is why no authority tells you how long it should be, what it should say, or whether it may be a joke. It is not their page.
The Practical Conventions
Since there are no rules, what exists is practice:
Short. One line is the norm, a short paragraph the outer limit. Length works against it: a dedication reads as a gesture, and a long gesture reads as an explanation.
"For" or "To". Both are standard. "For" is marginally more common in contemporary fiction.
Names or descriptions. "For Ellen" and "For my mother, who read everything" are equally conventional. Initials, nicknames and private references are all normal, and the reader is not owed an explanation.
Nothing is expected. Many books have no dedication at all, and its absence is not a gap.
Once, per book. A dedication that names everyone becomes an acknowledgements page, which is a different element with a different job. See how to write acknowledgements for a book.
Two Dedications
More common than you would think, and the Chicago Manual of Style's Q&A addresses it directly:
"In a book with more than one author it could make sense to have two separate dedication pages, but for a book by a single writer it seems awkward, especially if they are on consecutive recto pages, which might look as though a page from someone else's book accidentally ended up in yours. Alternatives include putting the dedications on the same page, on facing pages, or back to back."
So for co-authors, two pages is reasonable. For a single author with two dedications, put them on one page.
Chicago also notes a case where a dedication is redundant: in a festschrift, "By its nature, the book is dedicated to the honoree", and any special wording is better folded into the end of the preface.
Where It Sits
Front matter, after the copyright page. In Chicago's order the epigraph follows it directly; in the British order the epigraph goes to the end of the prelims instead, which is one of the real differences between the two.
New Hart's Rules puts it on page v where possible, on a right-hand page.
It takes no running head and prints no page number. New Hart's Rules omits running heads from "any section of the prelims that has no section heading (half-title, title, and imprint pages, the dedication and epigraph)". The page still counts in the roman sequence; it simply does not display its folio, as explained in what is a folio in book printing.
It is also excluded from the index, which is why Chicago lists it among the front matter sections indexers skip.
What Deckle Does
Deckle has a Dedication document type in the Front Matter menu, alongside Title Page, Copyright, Epigraph, Foreword, Preface and Table of Contents. It starts with the placeholder "For [Name]".
Being front matter, it takes lower-case roman numerals when restart numbering at Chapter One is on, and Deckle suppresses the running header on it, matching the convention above.
Position it after the copyright page in the Binder, since export order follows Binder order. If you want it and the epigraph on one page, put both in the same document rather than creating two.
The design latitude New Hart's Rules describes is available through the Styler, which works per document, so a dedication set in italics, centred, or at a different size from the body is a two-minute change and does not affect the rest of the book.
For the elements it is most confused with, see dedication vs epigraph vs acknowledgements.
Common Mistakes
- Turning it into acknowledgements. A list of everyone who helped is a different page.
- Explaining the dedication. The reader does not need to understand it.
- Two separate pages as a single author. Chicago suggests one page, or facing pages.
- Expecting a page number on it. It counts in the sequence but prints no folio.
- Feeling obliged to have one. Plenty of books do not.
FAQ
Q: How long should a dedication be? A: No authority sets a length. One line is the convention; a short paragraph is the practical limit.
Q: "For" or "To"? A: Both are standard. "For" is slightly more common in fiction.
Q: Can I dedicate a book to more than one person? A: Yes, on a single page. Chicago advises against separate consecutive pages for one author.
Q: Does the dedication get a page number? A: It counts in the roman numeral sequence but the folio is not printed.
Q: Can it be funny? A: Yes. New Hart's Rules calls it "a highly personal expression" that publishers accept unchanged.