Tutorial: How To Create a Table of Contents For Your Book on Substack

Hint: Sections are not the answer

Got a book you are releasing on Substack and can’t get it to make a decent table of contents in the actual order your chapters go in? Sections are nice, but they limit the amount of intro text you can use, and they put your chapters in whatever fanciful order Substack thinks is best, which is not often numerical order.

Well, tonight I figured out how to make a proper TOC page, so I’m posting the instructions here. This way I can find it again and also you can make yours all pretty-like.

Here’s mine for the book I’m working on: The Sooth. This is what I’ll show you how to do.

1. Go to your Publisher Dashboard and click Settings, all the way to the right.

2. On the Settings left menu, click Website or just scroll to the Website section..

3. Scroll down to Custom Pages and then click Add Page. This new page will be your TOC page.

4. Title it with your book’s name and then add whatever you want. I put in a brief description of my book, why I’m posting it as a serial on Substack, how long it will be up, and what the pricing structure is. Then I put direct links to each chapter in order.

5. Once your page is done, go back to the Settings Menu > Website. Your new page should show under Custom Pages, and right above that should be a button or link to add your new page to your navigation bar. Click that.

6. Voila! Your new page will add directly to your publication’s nav bar.

7. You will need to add each new chapter link to your TOC page as your release chapters. It will not update automatically. To do this, click your book title on your publication’s navigation bar, hit the edit button, and add in your new chapter link.

That’s it! Easy peasy.

Did you set up your own? If so, please drop a link to it in the comments. I’d love to see what you’re working on!

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I post The Sooth episodes on Wednesday mornings and other stuff on Friday mornings

I may also post at other times, but for sure on those days (I shoot for 6:00am PST delivery so we can sip coffee together and celebrate another week done but don’t always quite make that). See you then!