Reflections From the Fence: book publishing

Showing posts with label book publishing. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

So, You Want to Publish Your Family History:: Some Random Thoughts, 1997 Style

So, Carol is on another cleaning frenzy. This time it is old 3.25 inch floppy discs. I found a few stacks. I did not count, but, I believe I have reviewed 30 to 50 of them. I have actually retrieved a few things. This happens to be one of them. It is part of a presentation I did for a local genie society in 1997 after I published my first family history. So, I thought I would share it here. You have permission to adjust the terminology to 2016.

So, you want to publish your family history? Here are some random thoughts, which may or may not help you along the way:

Study other family histories. What do you like? What don’t you like? My don’t likes: Hard to read due to font style or the size of the print. Not sourced. No places stated, only the dates.

Decide the scope. Do you want to include photos? Do you want to include documents? Include only documents of those who have passed? Do you even want to include any living souls?

Do it YOUR way.

Give yourself plenty of time. You will still be printing and organizing 12 hours before the book is due at the printers!

The ONLY way you will ever do this is to JUMP in with both feet!

It is gonna be scary!

Pace your self, this is going to take awhile.

Ladies, forget doing housework.

Get organized. Or try!

Be nice to your significant other BEFORE you start this project. You will need their support and understanding throughout the entire process!

Backup your data base constantly. This cannot be repeated enough. Back it up daily, or more frequently if you are doing a lot of input. Make SEVERAL copies of your backup data. Keep a copy near the computer. Keep a copy somewhere else. Send copies to friends for safe keeping. BACK UPS ARE VITAL!!

Get on good terms with your computer hacker person BEFORE you start this project. You will need to turn to this person when the computer freezes while printing the last page of the index and in your panic you are not sure you have saved the document.

Get on good terms with your data base programmer.

Be on friendly terms with your postal carrier.

Try not to work when you are tired, that is when you make really big mistakes. If you set a date for publication you will be working when you are tired. SO--try not to set a publication date.

DO, set a deadline for submissions of data, photos, documents. Submissions WILL come in AFTER the deadline and in fact will come in up to and after the date you have forwarded your book to your printer!

Try to use everything submitted. However, I would suggest cropping photos depicting bras hanging on doorknobs. Crop the bra out of photos.

Remember, this is your family’s book. You are ONLY the compiler. This ain’t no novel, you probably will not win a Pulitzer Prize for this work.

Treat the family and all those that contribute to your work with respect--they are sharing themselves with you. Don’t take credit for other’s work! Praise them for their assistance, remember this work would not happen without all the help they are giving you.

You won’t make everyone happy.

Have plenty of office supplies IN the house. Ink for your printer--you will run out in the middle of your final print! Pens, paper--reams of it, sticky notes in several sizes, envelopes in several sizes.

Donate copies to libraries and historical societies in areas your ancestors lived in. Future generations will look there. Donate copies to the best research libraries in your country. Here in the US, that list would include the Family History Center, Salt Lake City. Allen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, Indiana. Mid-Continent Library, Independence Missouri. No, that is not an inclusive list.

When mailing, seal up the envelopes at all corners. Require a signature when returning documents and photos that were so generously loaned to you for the book.

Be creative, be serious, be lighthearted, be generous.

Maintain balance about the project. Maintain your sense of humor. Have fun!

Expect everything to go wrong---it will at least once. But, HAVE FUN!

* Photo courtesy of Pixabay and Unsplash. Photo is CC0 Public Domain, Free for commercial use. No attribution required.

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Friday, May 25, 2012

118th Carnival Of Genealogy :: Reading!

Its that time again, Carnival of Genealogy, the 118th, and the subject this time is Reading.

Jasia, of Creative Gene, our host, asks:

"Do you come from a family of readers? What kinds of reading material was typically found around your house when you were growing up... fiction books, comic books, poetry, the Bible, magazines, cookbooks, prayer books??? What do you like to read now? Do you give books as gifts? Are you a fan of eBooks? The lazy, hazy days of summer are right around the corner and many of us will be reaching for a good book to read on the hammock or on the beach. What do you recommend?"

I have to say that I, as well as my three sons, daughter-in-laws and the grandtwins all seem to be a family of readers. Man does most of his reading on the net. I have one son who has in the past read the classics, his mom has not. And, the grandtwins, they read ALL the time. I am surprised there are any books in their local library they have NOT read. Heavens, when they come to visit, we have had to take them to our library and check out 6 to 10 books for a one week visit.

I don't have strong recollections of what kind of books were around my home as a child, except for encyclopedia type collections and school books. There must have been more, but, the memory has faded - -

Remember Little Golden Books?
Some of our boys favorites!

I enjoy reading research stuff, but when I am whooped I have to confess - - I read trash novels, some call them bodice rippers. Yea, something with little plot, no redeeming qualities, something that I don't have to think about, and most importantly, something that hopefully WILL put me to sleep! And, yes, I now do trash novel e-books, free downloads rock!

Do we give books as gifts? We have always given books to the children of the family, starting from the time they were 6 months old, even younger, when they received cloth books. As they got a bit older, they received those really thick paged books, the ones that withstood teething. After that, our boys graduated to Little Golden Books like the one shown here. And, as they got older still, we have encouraged visits to the library rather than finance their reading addictions, those grandtwins can go through $50.00 to $100.00 worth of new books in less than a week!

The next question deals with recommendations of books to read. Since most of the books I read for "fun?" are nothing I would recommend, lets chat about books I do recommend, research books (but of course - LOL). You know the ones we pull off the shelves at our favorite research libraries all across the nation, like these from the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Allen County, Indiana. Shelves and shelves, book after book, hundreds, thousands of them. Wonderful books, books filled with facts and a now and then a few inaccuracies. A life line to our research.

Have you ever given much thought to how those books got there, aside from the fact that someone had to shelve them, someone had to donate them or the library had to purchase them. How did they actually come into being??

I just happen to have a bit of experience with this (just a bit LOL), so, let me share with you that all those weighty research tomes come into being due to the love and dedication of those that did the research, who then compiled or wrote them, edited them, and finally at some point published them. Hundreds and in some cases thousands of hours go into each and every one of those books. Think about that for a moment longer, each book you see in the photo above was the product of many hours, dedication, usually a hunk of ca$h, sweat, tears, maybe a few bug bites, sun burn, possibly a few frozen toes and noses and ALWAYS very tired feet by a lot of people that care immensely about what they are doing.

Printing the book from he*$, page
by page checking formatting as I go.

Those of you that follow me on Facebook or Google+ have probably grown tired of my chattering on and on lately about my current project - formatting a book. It has taken on a life and name of it's own, not a nice name, the formatting project/book from he*$. It seems, somehow, that just about every book I get involved with has issues. Formatting issues, additional research that just has to be done and no one else is available at that time to do the research, issues, one after another.

I end up spending hours fixing the messes, the issues, fighting computer foul ups, and this week, a huge mess when Man and I decided to bring a printer downstairs for me to work with. Short story, the printer was leaking ink and before we realized how bad it was, we had ink spots on about 25 feet of our carpet in the upstairs bedroom and hallway. If you have never had the pleasure of cleaning up that kind of a mess, believe me, you do not want to go there. I know, it is really not the BOOKS fault, it just felt that way! LOL

And, so, why the tails of woe? Why am I whining and wailing, and crying and sharing my pain with everyone? Well, for one thing, it does help me to vent. Thank you all so much for letting me bend your ear about my woeful stories. And, maybe just a little bit wicked on my part, the other thing is, I hope that my sharing my experiences will help others appreciate what they are using during their research.

I sit in libraries and watch researchers with a stack of books, lovingly compiled by someone or a group of someones. The researchers open them, glance through the index, and depending on what they find, they search the pages that look interesting, or simply flip the book over and grab the next one. I get it, time is of the essence and there is a HUGE stack of books waiting your attention. Keep it moving, hurry, bring another stack of books, start flipping through those indexes again, no names, next book. Move, flip, discard, hurry.

And, personally having spent hundreds of hours stomping cemeteries, sitting in dusty dark courthouse basement rooms pulling huge heavy old deed books down off the shelves, formatting, fighting with my computer, fighting with the home printer, fighting with the company that publishes these magnificent pieces of work, carting them home in the back of my car, standing in line at the post office mailing them, I have to admit to watch someone rather callously flipping all those books over and not appearing to give much thought to the fact other than, nope, none of my family in that book, well, it stings a bit.

A trunk full of books fresh from the publisher/printer, ready for you and you and - -
Are you ready to research yet?? Oh, yea, me too!

So, now that you have read my tails of woe, my hope is that the next time you are in a research library with a cart full of wonderful fact filled research books you will pause just a moment, think about the hundreds of people and the thousands of hours they dedicated to bring you those records.

I admit that when I am doing some research, using books from some far off locality that I will hit the index, look up any names that fit my research parameters and hurry along to the next book. However, probably because of my experiences, these days, I pause for just a few moments, acknowledge the people and the work involved in bringing me such wonderful resources, thanking them, and I quietly and respectfully lay the book aside.

Thank you for your blood, sweat and tears, thank you for this wonderful resource.

They won't hear the thanks, but, I know I gave them.

So, to answer the last question of this challenge, what do I recommend for your summer reading, why research books, of course, my favorite reading material.

With thanks.

* The disclaimer, Facebook, Google+, Little Golden Books own their copyrights. I did not receive any remuneration of any type, kind or amount to mention them in this or any other post I write here at Reflections.

** Oh, and I can almost guarantee, that if you are printing a book and the deadline is looming you will either crash the computer, run out of ink or jam the printer. No kidding, it is guaranteed! IT. WILL. HAPPEN. You read it here! And, yes, I did say that.
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Saturday, March 3, 2012

Formatting, Or, Eyes Crossed, Mind Numb, Oh, WHY Do I Do This?

Copyright 2012, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

Call me crazy, call me, well, lots of descriptive terms come to mind, which are best not mentioned on a public forum, but, honestly I just cannot publish a page like this:

So, I don't. SIGHH. I edit them with photo editing software. It takes time, this particular page took almost 30 minutes. GULP! Here it is partially finished:

And, this is how it will look in the finished product, not perfect, but, I think it is a bit better. I sure hope so, since I am spending HOURS formatting this book for the local genie club.