ACTUALLY, kiddles:
The Publisher's Guidelines expressly state that the TOC is to go in the front. (Sec. 5.1, HTML TOC Guidelines, p.18 of the AK Publishing Guidelines, v.2015.4.1).
Quote:
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Place the HTML TOC towards the beginning of the book and not at the end of the book. This ensures that a customer paging through the book from the beginning encounters the TOC naturally. Incorrect placement of the TOC affects the accuracy of the “Last Page Read” feature. Correct placement ensures that the TOC appears in sample downloads of the book.
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It's not merely aesthetics, as they note.
Lastly, if you want the TOC to appear in the right place, from a viable source file, use Kindlegen or KindlePreviewer. If you only have a Word file, use the KDP to convert it.
All of those methods will work.
Hitch