Write a Book

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We’ll show you a way to write something that is chapter-based using your WordPress.com blog. A blog is, essentially, a reverse chronological publishing tool. That’s what it is, and to make it behave differently you will need to do some work yourself. You will also need your readers to exercise some self-discipline (if at all possible, of course).

Following these steps will produce a front page with links to each chapter and the actual chapters.

1. Create a new page from Pages -> Add New called Index.
2. Create a new page from Pages -> Add New called Chapters.
3. Go to Settings -> Reading; under Front page displays, choose A static page.Set Index as the Front page.Set Chapters as the Posts page.

   

4. Create a new post from Posts -> Add New – this will be your Chapter 1. Publish it. Copy the URL of the new post.
5. Edit the Index page, and create a link to Chapter 1. Note: If you do not mind the chapters appearing in descending order on your Index page, you can use the Archives Shortcode to painlessly create a chapter index.
6. Repeat steps 5 and 6 for each chapter of your book.

Recent Posts, Recent Comments, and Archives widgets may allow visitors to move around more freely and could potentially break the flow of your book. You may want to remove them.

Note: You can also use Pages for your chapters instead of posts.

What should your book be about? We can’t say; but killer robots and three-toed sloths are pretty cool.

Last modified: October 23, 2009