Why Your Table of Contents Matters.

Mar 30

This blog is a result of a video on YouTube I watched by Julie Broad of Book Launchers. It was about how the table of contents in your book is as important as your cover and your back cover blurb.

The first thing that will draw your audience to your book is an eye catching or interesting cover art. When I come up with a design idea for my book, I try to think up one that will make someone pick it up over any other book next to it.

There is no exact science to figuring out which art will attract which reader but I know I didn't want my covers to look like everyone else's. I think people would get brain fatigue.

Take the cover to the left. You have a massive guy and a pretty young woman. The title is formidable but it doesn't really give you an idea of what the book might be about. There is no blood and guts. There are no guns blazing, and no woman in the arms of a handsome man with her body parts suggestively exposed. I hope this will spark their curiosity and they will turn to read the back cover.

Now, what I didn't know, and thanks to Julie Broad's video, is how important the TOC was. I thought readers only looked at the title, cover, and back cover. It never dawned on me that the table of contents needed to draw their interest. After taking pause, I found it did make sense. I went back and looked at some of my previous publications and I noticed that I was instinctively doing it, but I saw on some of the 26 chapters in "Frankenstina" there was room for improvement.

Now going forward, I will apply more attention to the chapter titles that I come up with. Here is the TOC for the above upcoming book. What do you think.? Does it make you want to read more?

Write your comment below.

Jerrimiah Stonecastle

Stonecastle Publications LLC

"Throwing Stones at a Glass House"

Jerrimiah Stonecastle

Born and raised in the slums of New York, he was raised by a single mom who earned her Master's in Early Childhood Development while working as a teacher's aide. She sent young Jerrimiah to the prestigious Power Memorial Academy for Boys, the Alma mater of NBA great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He worked part-time after school to help his mom pay for his tuition.

He declined a full scholarship from Concordia University and joined the US Army and became a combat medic. He returned to New York upon his discharge where he was hired by the NYC Chief Medical Examiner’s Office as a medical stenographer.

In 1982 he joined the New York City Police Department. In 1983 he was recruited by the Organized Crime Control Bureau (OCCB) as an undercover officer in their narcotics division. He finished out his career as a detective assigned to the Bronx Homicide Task Force.

When he retired in 2002, he relocated to Florida to pursue his passion for writing. After hundreds of rejection letters and reading Amanda Hocking's story, he decided to self-publish his own works. In 2016 he formed Stonecastle Publications LLC and has published 30 books so far. He has an additional 400 fiction and nonfiction novels in draft form in his company's literary vault.

On October 31, 2018, He launched his first horror novel "FRANKENSTINA" and released the sequel "FRANKENSTINA REBORN" on Halloween 2019. There are two more books in the horology.

On March 7, 2023, he received the Literary Titan Book Award for the apocalyptic thriller "A Flash of Light".

Stonecastle Publications LLC

"Throwing Stones At a Glass House"

https://jerrimiahstonecastle.org/

Why Your Table of Contents Matters.

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