I’ll show you how to start a Notion database from scratch to manage content for a book: how to do it, what fields to use, and a couple of basic filtered ‘views’. If you’re writing a book, I hope this helps you too!

A duotoned dark purple and beige version of the Apple open book emoji, in front of a green circle background

Summary: Set up Notion for book content management by creating pages for chapters, research, and notes. Use databases to track progress, outline chapters, and keep all your content organised.


In this video (9min), I walk you through how to setup Notion for book content management – with the assumption that you already have some idea of what you’re writing about, and chapter titles in mind.

Here’s what’s covered:
0:14 Create new Notion page as a database in ‘table’ view
0:44 Populate the table with anticipated chapter headings
1:32 Differentiate chapter types (major, section and subsection)
2:28 Assign content numbering for sort order
3:25 Create ‘major chapters only’ view
4:27 Select best layout
4:42 Add content status field
4:57 Customise status options
6:38 Setup status board view
7:46 Setup ‘ready for review’ table
8:36 Add ‘Review notes / comments’ field

And checkout SizeUp for doing that quick 50-50 split view.

And here are some of the ‘views’ I recommend:

Screenshot of a Notion database showing table view with order, name, heading type and status of each item
All chapters
Screenshot of a Notion database showing table view of 'major chapters' with just the 'Name' field visible
Major chapters
Screenshot of a Notion database showing board view with 'Not started', 'In progress - nearly done!' and 'Done - ready for review' lists
Chapters by status
Screenshot of a Notion database showing a table view called 'Ready for review' showing 'Name' and 'Review notes / comments' fields
Ready for review

Psst. Our new YouTube channel is alive and we’d love a couple of subscribers, if you’re interested in this sort of thing!