Author: Chris Stevenson

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Print A Few Extra Books

If you have finished writing your book you may be wondering how many copies you should have printed. If your book is about an ancestor that has quite a few descendants, this could be a difficult question. It can be very helpful to contact relatives to determine their interest or better yet to get advanced orders from them. If you are giving them as gifts to your grandchildren, it is easier because you know how many grandchildren you have. Whatever method you used to determine the number of copies to print, there is one more thing for you to consider. After several people see your book in its finished form, you will be asked if you have some more copies. These people may be friends or relatives that didn’t show any interest before the book was done, but now that they can see how great it is and they can have an “instant” copy, they are interested. So my advice for you is to print a few extra books. It is less expensive to run a few extra copies when your book is being printed the first time than to start over and print and bind just a few copies at a later date. If your finances won’t permit this additional expense, consider approaching a relative that can finance the few additional copies. Then as you sell the additional books you can repay their investment in your book. I have found that it will save you a lot of hassle and expense if you print a few extra books with the first printing.

Chris Stevenson cs@sgenealogy.com www.sgenealogy.com

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Include a CD with Your Book

Here is something that can be of great benefit to your readers. It can be very beneficial to include, with your book, a CD that has an electronic copy of your book file. If you can, include both a PDF copy of the book plus the original file format (for information about PDF, see my post from Nov. 2009). These files will be searchable by your readers and can be a great aid to them in finding specific info that they are looking to find. You can even include, in a separate file, all the sources that you used to research and create the book. You might make another supplemental document that includes most or all of the parts of your book that were edited out. Then, if there is enough room on the CD, include JPEG copies of the pictures that you have in your book. You may have had other pictures or documents that were left out that you could include on a CD with very little extra cost or effort.

Making a CD to include with the book can even help you in editing your book. If you don’t really want to include all of the pictures you have of Uncle John in the printed book but you want the rest of the family to have all of them, then including them on the CD is the perfect answer. By putting this kind of CD in the back of your book, you will add great value for your readers for very little additional cost.

Chris Stevenson cs@sgenealogy.com www.sgenealogy.com

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Type it Myself or Hire it Out

Is it better to type my book myself or hire it out? This question could be changed to many different parts of the publishing process, but this post is specifically about typing. You might be the type of person that likes to do it yourself. But if you can’t seem to find the time to type up your book, you can easily hire that part out. If you’re not sure where to start looking for a typist, you could start looking in your own family. You can arrange for a relative to do it, if they are willing and have the time. You might check with a young married member of your family who is looking for additional income. Another place to look for a good typist is at a local college. You can find many students that want to earn a little money on the side who are very good typists. Even though you can turn the typing over to someone else, that doesn’t mean that you loose control of the content of the book. With red pen in hand, you can edit to your hearts content and rework the book over and over until it is just how you want. Don’t be shy about asking your typist to make the changes that you want. If you are excited about the end product, they will be happy to help you reach that goal.

Another option is to buy a software program that transcribes from your voice, like Dragon Naturally Speaking. For someone who is a very slow typist but still wants to do it themselves, this is a good option. I tried this program many years ago and it work fair, but I can imagine that they have improved it greatly since then. You could look into it and see if it will work for you and then leave a comment below to help others with this same problem.

Many publishers will have in-house or freelance people to help you with typing or other parts of the project that are just too overwhelming to you. The important thing to keep in mind is to overcome all of the obstacles that are in your way and successfully reach your end goal of publishing your history! Your history and your unique stories are too important to lose.

Chris Stevenson cs@sgenealogy.com www.sgenealogy.com

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Connect Chapters with a Visual Chart

A few of the books that we have published have put a small pedigree chart at the beginning of each chapter. I thought that it was a good idea and for certain family histories, might be very useful. I’ll include a picture to demonstrate how this works, but essentially what you do is to create a small pedigree chart that shows the scope of the book. Then you use bold or a gray highlight to indicate where this chapter’s person is on the pedigree chart. It is a helpful way for your reader to be clear about who the person is that this chapter is about and how they fit in the family. I think that this would be extremely useful for families where names are repeated. You could also use this technique with a family group or a descendant chart. It may not work for your book, but I thought it was a good idea.

Here is an example:

PedigreeChapterStartExample

Chris Stevenson cs@sgenealogy.com www.sgenealogy.com

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Volume Two, Years Later

Here is a dilemma that was again presented to me, so I thought I would address it here in case someone else has the same issue. You might find yourself like this gentleman who published his life history 15 years ago on legal size pages. He now wants to update his history by adding additional pictures that would be inserted into the first history and then adding a few more chapters about what he has done in the last 15 years. The hard choice is deciding on the format of this new printing.

Here are the choices: #1) Format all of the new material the same as the first printing (legal size) so that they match.

#2) Retype all of the first printing so that both the new and the old can be produced in a preferred size (6 x 9 or 8.5 x 11).

#3) Create the new chapters in a self contained book in a preferred size and copy the original book the same (legal) size and give the family two volumes (one legal size and one letter size).

#4) Reduce the original book pages to 8.5 x 11 and then add the new pages in the back so the whole book is letter size.

Here are the strengths and weaknesses that I can see with each method. You might think of some additional reasons, if so, add them as comments below.

#1) This is by far the easiest, but if you don’t like the original size or it is not preferred by the reader then its usefulness decreases very rapidly. Another advantage to this way is that you only need to copy the additional material to give to those that already have the first volume. The main disadvantage is that you don’t really like the old size (or at least your readers dislike it).

#2) This method is the most work but will yield the best finished product. The new book will be all in one volume and can be distributed to your readers as an updated history and will be in a more pleasing size. The disadvantages are that you have to spend a lot of time (or hire someone) to retype all of the text and scan all of the photos from the first volume. It will also be more expensive because you are reprinting the first volume in the new format.

#3) With this method, you are using the preferred size for the new material and not having to retype all of volume one. Volume two will be a friendlier size for the reader and for those that have volume one already, you won’t need to reprint those pages. With this method you will have two different size books, not necessarily a bad thing, but this may bother you or the readers.

#4) With this method you avoid having to retype volume one and your new edition has both the old and new all in one book. The disadvantages are that it will be difficult to read the reduced pages because the type will be much smaller. Also, the margins will be extra large on the sides of the reduced pages. And like method number two, it will also be more expensive because you are reprinting the first volume in the new format.

If you have a similar challenge, hopefully this has been helpful to you. There isn’t just one right answer, so study the advantages and disadvantages of each method and decide which will work best for you.

Chris Stevenson cs@sgenealogy.com www.sgenealogy.com

If you have a question or need help with a history, please let me know. I would be happy to help.

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The Stories Will Make it Great

Tell a story; don’t just get stuck in the dry facts. Anyone who reads your personal or family history will likely be interested in the facts, but what they’ll enjoy most and remember are the everyday details – favorite stories and anecdotes, embarrassing moments and family traditions. Sometimes it can add interest to include varying accounts of the same event from different perspectives. Personal stories offer a great way to introduce new people and chapters, and will help keep your reader interested. If your ancestors left no personal accounts, you can still tell their story as if they had, using what you’ve learned about them from your research. Look at historical information at the time to see what was happening in their city. Be sure to make it clear that this
information is not from their own writing but is added to give an example of what your relative might have been doing at the time. Use a phrase like “Mary didn’t say this in her record but I can just imagine her …” The stories in your history will help to make it memorable and enjoyable for the reader and satisfying to you. The Stories will make it great.

Chris Stevenson cs@sgenealogy.com www.sgenealogy.com

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Video Histories

Ever since YouTube came along, the younger generation want to see it instead of read it. Adding a video DVD in the back of you book could be the icing on the cake to cause your grandchildren and great-grandchildren to really enjoy your life history. Here are some helpful hints if this is something you are considering.

There are professional companies that can interview you with a camera rolling and video some special family events. Then they will take that film and edit it into a wonderful DVD to be enjoyed over and over again. If you want to have a more hands on approach or do it on a smaller budget, you can do it yourself for a simple but effective look. I few critical things to keep in mind when you are doing a video. Be sure that the lighting is good so that you don’t show up as a black blob on the screen. Also, do the taping where background noise isn’t a problem and where you are close enough to the camera to be heard clearly.

Here are some web pages that will be a great recourse for you:

http://storytelling.concordia.ca/oralhistory/resources/tips.html

http://www.genealogy.com/95_carmack.html

http://genealogy.about.com/od/oral_history/Oral_Histories_Interviewing_Relatives_and_Collecting_Oral_History.htm

Interviewer tips: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/ROHO/resources/rohotips.html

Make your DVD fun and interesting and it will capture future audiences for years to come.

Chris Stevenson cs@sgenealogy.com www.sgenealogy.com

Email questions and I’d be happy to help.

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Decide Your Page Size in the Beginning

Occasionally someone asks if I can take there letter size (8.5 x 11”) book and reduce it to 6.25 x 9.5” size. I can, but the margins will are much too large on the top and bottom so it doesn’t look very good. I would suggest that you decide in the beginning on the size that you want your finished book. Then when you are typing and placing pictures in the document, everything will fit together nicely and your book will have a more professional look.

I would also suggest that you choose a good readable font. Three common fonts that are easy to read are: Times Roman, Bookman Old Style, and Garamond. Try these out and see which font you like best and find the most readable.

Another tip is to include the chapter in the header on the same line as the page number. One caution, don’t number the pages manually, use automatic numbering. This will save you hours of time and the page numbers will stay consecutive even when you add pictures and edit your book.

Chris Stevenson cs@sgenealogy.com http://www.sgenealogy.com/

Email questions and I’d be happy to help.

Here are two examples of headers with the chapter and page number on the same line: PorterV3

SampleP3

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How Shall I Organize My Book?

That is a great question that I am asked quite frequently. There are several different ways to organize the material in your book. (Just as every person is unique, each book should be unique.) The layout and design of your book, where you put the pictures, and the way you organize the information is part of the creativity & uniqueness of your book. If you don’t know where to start, you can get ideas from looking at other printed histories from family, friends or genealogists and see which style you like best. If you find a layout that you like then use the same one, otherwise you can do it any way you would like. Don’t think that you have to make your book look just like other histories, unless you like it. Go ahead and get opinions and advice from others, but most importantly, don’t be afraid to do it the way that you would like.

Here are some common ways to organize your history. For personal histories, chronological order is frequently used. For genealogical histories the two most common are: 1) Start with the oldest ancestor and work your way to today. Or 2)Start with you, then your parents, then your grandparents, etc. If your history is about multiple cousins of the same generations, the two most common ways are: 1) Alphabetical order; or 2) Put them in order by families in birth order.

Pictures and documents can be placed in groups or scattered throughout the book. I prefer to put the pictures throughout the book, close to where they are talked about in the text. If you are going to print some pictures in color, you can save some money by combining the color pictures on the same page, but other than that feel free to put the pictures and documents where you would like to have them.

Remember, make it your way.

Chris Stevenson cs@sgenealogy.com http://www.sgenealogy.com/

Email questions and I’d be happy to help.

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How Important is an Index?

All books will be a much better book with an index (exceptions are novels or children’s books). You are very familiar with what is in your book and where it is, but everyone else doesn’t have this knowledge. An index will aid the reader and researcher to find exactly what they are looking for and know for sure if the information they are looking for is in your book.

There are a small number of family histories that can use automatically generated indexes. Most histories will need to be manually indexed. One of the main problems with any kind of automatic indexing is that we don’t have a person’s name listed exactly the same way each time. For example, one time we may list someone by their full name, the next instance my just list their first name, and then we may have another story that just uses their nickname. Only a manual index will be able to have all three of these listed correctly for the same person.

Most people are familiar with the index card method of indexing a book, and that way still works, but I have a little easier way to manually create an index. As you are working on the book and typing it up, make a new file called “index” and begin listing all of the names that you would like included (listed surname first). Include key place names (towns, counties), important events (world wars, accidents), as well as people in your index. For female members or instances where the family name changed significantly in spelling, consider using cross-references to maiden and married names or alternate spellings used by the same individual.

When you are finished writing, proofreading, and editing the book and it is all ready for the publisher, have your word processor alphabetize the list of names that you have typed. Now as you go through the book for the last proofreading (usually from the printer’s proof) add the page numbers for each person and your index is done. Pretty slick.

Some people judge a book by its cover. Most genealogists judge a book by its index.

If you would like to look further into using an indexing program, here are some good links for you to find more about them.

Some indexing programs you can buy are listed on this site: http://www.anindexer.com/about/sw/swindex.html

Here are two articles about the limitations and disadvantages to using an automatic indexing program: http://www.backwordsindexing.com/Comp.html

http://www.anindexer.com/about/auto/autoindex.html

Chris Stevenson cs@sgenealogy.com http://www.sgenealogy.com/

Email questions and I’d be happy to help.