Family history books are usually of a piece. They are organized chronologically by family line. The emphasis is on providing a report of the lives of ancestors, sometimes as an ongoing narrative, others with individual biographical sketches. There are pedigree charts and family photos. With the help of a good professional book designer, they are beautiful books, often family heirlooms. But a family history book doesn’t have to fit this blueprint. We have recently worked with several authors who have created unique and wonderful family histories that are very different from their more conventional cousins. Let’s take a look at some of these alternative approaches to writing about family history.
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When you market your book, you have more people who want to help you than you think. Your friends and family want your book to be successful and will gladly support you if you tell them how. One of the best ways you can capitalize on these potential supporters is to organize a launch team for your book. Here’s how to organize your team.
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How many times have you heard someone say, “You should write a book?”
It turns out that if you are building a business they were right.
Forbes reported that in a study of business book authors titled The Business Impact of Writing a Book released by The RAIN Group of Wellesley, Massachusetts found that:
· 49% of authors said that publishing a business book affected their business positively
47% of authors said that publishing a business book affected their business extremely positively
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James Daunt is a man with a plan. The owner of nine independent bookstores in London, Daunt took over the failing UK bookstore chain Waterstones in 2011 and returned it to sustained profitability in 2015. Its current profits are, said Daunt, “pretty much at historic levels.”
Last week equity firm Elliott Management purchased the 627-store Barnes & Noble and installed Daunt as CEO with a mandate to produce a similar turnaround which would save the bookseller from Amazon’s retail apocalypse.
"We as booksellers have a duty to create excitement about books,” said Daunt. “If we do so, we'll continue to have customers come through the doors."
How does Daunt propose to do it?
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Last Christmas my brother-in-law’s twenty something sons gave him a 23 & Me DNA test kit. They weren’t alone. Wired reported that Ancestry.com sold 1.5 million DNA test kits during the Christmas shopping season and 23 & Me, while not releasing total sales figures, was one of the top five best selling items on Black Friday. When I came across the figures, I wondered what happened with those test kits.
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Readers devour nonfiction books. Statista put total purchases at over 240 million in 2017. Author Earnings reported that more than a quarter of those sales belonged to independent or self-publishing authors. It’s no wonder that authors want to tap the nonfiction market. If you are an indie author planning to self-publish a book, before you begin banging away at your keyboard here are four things you should consider.
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There are many factors that contribute to the success of an independently self-published book, but there is one that is indisputable: quality matters.
A study of self-publishing authors recently published by Forbes online quantifies quality’s impact.
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Family history books are complicated. They often contain not only text, but endnotes, appendices, a bibliography of sources, charts, and images. Family historians who want to self-publish often find this complexity overwhelming. We get it.
The problem is that many people try to do too many things at once. Let's look at how to do it one step at a time.
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If you want to find a good movie to see or a good restaurant, asking a friend gives you tried and true advice you can depend on. The same thing is true with books. A recommendation from a friend makes you confident that a book is one you’ll enjoy reading.
What authors need to understand is that today 3 of 4 potential readers trust online book reviews as much as personal recommendations.
We'll look at how to find quality and reviews. and nine top sources for reviewers.
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Not so long ago publishing a book intended for a limited audience of family members and friends was an expensive proposition. Today, technological changes in the world of printing and the evolution of the publishing industry have given authors an opportunity to dramatically reduce the cost of publishing books like family histories and memoirs. Here are four ways to save money when publishing your book.
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Acquiring just the right images to illustrate your family history book or memoir can be tricky. Completing the detective work to find a photo that’s perfect is just the beginning of the process. There are two hurdles to get over before you’re ready to use it. The first is to make sure that you have an image of appropriate quality to use in book printing. The second is making sure that you have the right to use the image. Let’s take a look at how to do both.
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“African American genealogical research has always been challenging, but not impossible.”
Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society
As we begin African American History Month we want to offer some assistance to our readers who have taken up that challenge. We have helped a number of African American authors to publish family history books. To a person they have told us how difficult it can be to find the resources to document the lives of their ancestors. To help aspiring genealogists and family historians we have created a list of the best places online to find those resources. Each site has its own list of additional resources. We hope you find them useful.
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Illustrations can make or break a children’s book, even one that has an excellent story. If you are working with a traditional they will choose the illustrator. An indie author who wants to self-publish a children’s book, however, has to find and hire the illustrator for her book. Here are four tips to help you find the right person to illustrate your book.
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If you are an independent author who wants to self-publish a book there are plenty of companies out there to help you. The problem is how to decide which one you should choose. There are two important areas to explore:
Who will own the rights to your book?
Which arrangement will allow you to earn the maximum return on your book?
Here are five questions to guide you in this exploration.
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Old documents often present a problem for family historians. People often come to us with diaries, journals or books written by ancestors that they hope to re-publish in whole or part. The question all of them pose is how to do it without having to retype the whole document.
Optical character recognition (OCR) is one possible answer. OCR is a process for translating text from paper into electronic files that can be manipulated on a computer using a word processing program.
This post tells you everything you need to know about OCR.
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Great covers sell books. If you want to sell books, yours had better have one. Here's why.
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“Whatever is worth doing at all it is worth doing well,” said 17th century British statesman Phillip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield. That’s an excellent piece of advice for writers, and one that they too often ignore. One does not achieve success as an author by chance. Here’s a blueprint to guide you every step of the way and you use it to stay on track.
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Book World, the nation’s fourth largest bookstore chain, announced yesterday that it is closing all 45 of its stores. There’s an important lesson here for authors, particular indie authors who are self-publishing their books. Trying to get your independently published book into bookstores may not be the best use of your time and resources.
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October is Family History Month. That makes it a time when many people feel disappointed that they haven’t gotten their family’s history written yet. No matter how diligent the genealogy researcher, writing a family history is a real challenge. Here are five ideas that will help you get yours finished.
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A list of great reads for your book discussion group!
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