If you are looking for ways to share your ancestor stories and family history, there are a growing number of online sites offering easy ways to do it. They provide templates with which you can upload everything from a single anecdote to a full book. These service providers also promise to store your stories either on-site or with a cloud-based system.
We always encourage people to share their stories, but advise caution when embracing a net-based solution. The latest object lesson is Ancestry.com’s decision to shut down its My Canvas publishing program.
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We’re in Salt Lake City for day two of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) annual conference. The attendees are a wonderfully serious and enthusiastic group who have asked us some great questions. One of my favorites was, “Do you have the app to make days 48 hours long so I have time to get my family history written?” I had to admit that our crack R & D department is still working on that one. By far the most frequently asked question was, “What’s the best way to organize my family history?” There is no single best way, but here are five questions to think about when you are organizing you own book.
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We are getting ready to head to Salt Lake City for the annual conference of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies which begins July 27th.
It’s always fun to talk with enthusiastic people about genealogy and their family history. But what we are especially interested in about this conference is one of the activities for participants.
The Conference Blog explains:
One hundred years ago, the second day of our conference, marks the outbreak of World War One. The anniversary of the “War to End all Wars” will be a major focus of our conference, with sessions exploring how the War impacted the lives of our ancestors.
Consider submitting your World War I Story to be included in our collection. Your story need not be about the war or someone who was in the military, but it can tell the story of what your relatives did during the war.
There’s no better way to memorialize our ancestors than to tell their stories.
We are looking forward to reading and talking about the stories participants submit which will be posted online at the conference.
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Why does it take so long to get a book into print?
That’s a question a lot of first time authors ask. There are plenty of good reasons that the process takes so long, but a humorous look at how a book gets edited, designed, published, publicized, distributed and marketed is much more fun. Enjoy the video published by the Digital Marketing Team at Macmillan titled From the Typewriter to the Bookstore: A Publishing Story.
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One of the first things an editor learns is the importance of a good style manual. When tricky questions of grammar, punctuation or usage arise, it’s good to have a “bible” to refer to get the definitive answer as to the “correct” way to write something.
Today I got a good reminder. Correctness is not always absolute, even with the best of style manuals.
My problem was simple. I wanted to create a possessive of the name Julius. My client had written Julius’s. My recollection was that no additional s was necessary and that it should be Julius’. Which was correct?
I checked the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition and found the following advice:
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This post is a collection of insights on best business practices from writers around the net.
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I Googled the Miami Book Fair today to get the exhibitor application for what the New York Times described as the, “… largest and by nearly all accounts the most diverse public literary event in the United States.”
But on the way to the listing for the 31st Annual Miami Book Fair International, this November 21-23, an interesting item popped up in my search: Author Solutions Takes Signing Scam to Miami Book Fair on novelist David Gaughran’s site. I hit the link. Here's what I found.
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Thinking about writing a family history book someday? Most genealogists and family historians do.
Over the years, we have offered lots of advice on how to research your ancestors in ways that will help you write an interesting family narrative that will engage your readers. Today we will focus on a much more nuts and bolts topic: documentation.
Must your family history have a bibliography and source notes? No. There are no rules about what your book will or won’t contain. You are the author. You get to decide. However, if you want to create a record of your ancestors that other genealogists (maybe the next generation in your own family) can build on, you’ll need to document your sources.
As Family Search advises, “The best way to judge the quality of a family group record is by its source footnotes.”
So, if you do want document the story your book tells, here are two pieces advice that will save you time and frustration as you do.
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Are you looking for a publisher for your book?
Take a moment to think about your reasons for seeking a publisher. Chances are they will include:
Legitimacy and Prestige - A publisher’s imprint confers legitimacy on the book. It has been vetted by a literary agent (usually) and an acquisitions editor (always). The professional judgment of these gatekeepers confirms the quality of your book.
Advance Payment – A traditional publisher gives you an advance paid against future royalties when it buys the rights to your book.
Distribution and Publicity - Your publisher will handle distribution of your book. They can get your book into bookstores. The publisher’s publicity and marketing departments will get the word out about your book. They will handle advertising, schedule interviews and line up a book tour for you.
Sound good?
Before you sign a contract, let’s take a closer look at these benefits.
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If you have been looking for us on social media for the last five weeks we’ve been missing...We’re glad to be back online, hope we have information to share and look forward to hearing from all our friends.
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What’s the key to writing an engaging life story?
It’s a challenge faced by memoirists, biographers, and family historians. How do you get at the essence of the person you’re writing about?
A recent New York Times Book Review piece by Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, author of My Name Is Red, Snow and Museum of Innocence, posed a question by which all life writers might be guided. In a review of Adam Begley’s biography Updike, a life story of two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist John Updike, Pamuk asked, “How was Updike possible? Every literary biography should ask and attempt to answer the same question for its own subject.”
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We love a great family history conference.
What’s even better is sharing one with friends. We would like you to join us at the premier genealogy and family history event on the West Coast Southern California Genealogy Jamboree, June 6-8 at the Burbank, California Marriott. To make that happen we are raffling off a free full weekend registration.
All you need to do is visit the Stories To Tell Books Page on Facebook. Like the contest post and you are entered in the raffle.
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To construct a narrative family history one must gather the family lore and stories to supplement the facts drawn from vital records. Unfortunately, as most family historians know too well, the people we would like to ask about those stories are often no longer with us. When that’s the case, you need to reconstruct your family’s narrative from the limited records available.
Letters and diaries can be a rich source of family stories. Even a single letter can be a wonderful tool in understanding an ancestors time and place.
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Family history books are unique. They are usually targeted to a very small audience of family members. As a consequence, producing a family history presents an author with some unique challenges. Many family historians think finding a publisher is one of them. The truth is, they’d be better off without one.
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Telling a good story often depends on asking the right questions while you discover the facts of the tale you want to tell. Keeping three questions in mind as you research your genealogy will help you to create an interesting family history which will engage your readers.
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What are you doing for Preservation Week? It’s an important question for genealogists and family historians, whose mission is to preserve their family’s heritage. Here’s a chance to take action!
The American Library Association launched Preservation Week in 2010 out of a concern that “our cultural and information heritage…continues to be at risk.” The goal of this week, April 27-May 3, is “preserving and collecting personal, family, or community heritage.” You can see it on the ALA website Preservation Week: Pass It On!
The ALA’s efforts focus on our tangible heritage – documents, photos, artifacts, and digital collections of records. That’s good! But what about your family’s intangibles, the family stories and lore? Here are some things you should be doing right now.
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10 quotations about the craft of writing from great literary figures. These ideas will both inspire and instruct any writer.
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Any self-publishing author who wants to get his book out there might ask:
Is there a no-hassle way to sell my book on my website, Word Press blog, Facebook, or Pinterest page while keeping a larger share of the profits than I’d get on a third party site?
The 2013 Australian start-up Selz provides just that. Its website promises, “Effortless ecommerce for selling online from any website.”
Let's check it out.
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If you’re a self-publishing author, you have some important choices to make. In this blog series, we are discussing the pros and cons to help you with the most important decisions you’ll need to know about:
How authors can market their books online without technical skills?
In any group of self-publishing authors, this is always the big question. Here are five great ideas we have talked about in the past and links to our posts that explored the marketing tools in detail.
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How to hire self-publishing experts without the costs and problems of using a subsidy publisher.
When you hire freelancers they are responsible to you. You maintain control of your book’s production. You decide what kinds of help you need and keep costs down, paying only for what you need, rather than paying for a package of services that you don’t need.
Here are some things to keep in mind while hiring.
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