Chapter Four, Organizing Content.
In the last entry I selected the basic structure and features of my book.
With formatting chosen, I'm ready to write, pulling together favorite articles, grouping them into logical chapters, editing for consistency, and establishing the visual effect I want.
I've decided on nine chapters:
- Cheering Up
- Positive Attitude
- Personal Values
- Keeping Your Mind Strong
- Good Life Tips (positive psychology related info)
- Goal Setting
- Improving Relationships
- Favorite Articles
- Books For Growth (books I recommend)
This was actually the easy part. The material I'm using for this book is already written and I own the right to publish it in print. So this step is a matter of selecting the best and most popular material for each chapter.
I end up using forty articles. The book will be about 140 pages long or slightly less, which feels about right to me.
Constructing a Table of Contents
Now on to the table of contents. This turns out to be very challenging. I've only used TOC's once or twice and only used the most basic form at that. I'm using Microsoft Word 2003, which has a TOC function that's very easy to use if you have selected headings and titles styles in advance with the idea of a TOC. I didn't. So, the headings I've used throughout the document don't give me the exact TOC look I want.
Fortunately, there are options for manually configuring a TOC. Lulu's online documentation is helpful to a point, but many of their references are to older versions of Word. But between Lulu's FAQ's and Word's help function, I'm able to configure a TOC that I like.
In the process of working out the TOC I wanted, I had to get a good understanding of header and footer relationships between sections. This is crucial because it affects page numbering. More on that in the next chapter.
