Publishing Your Family History
Are you considering publishing your family history? Publishing your family history will allow you to share your hard work with your family. A family history book is a great gift idea for birthdays, weddings, and anniversaries, holidays, and family reunions!
There are many options for publishing your family history. Among your considerations in sorting through these options are (1) style, (2) size, (3) format, (4) demand, and (5) cost. These factors will contribute to your decision on how to proceed.
STYLE | Is this a genealogy or a pedigree? A genealogy (also called a compiled genealogy or narrative genealogy) details all of the descendants of a particular ancestor. A pedigree details all of the ancestors of a particular person. In general, a genealogy has more marketability, if you would like to sell your work. A genealogy would potentially apply to all members of a given family, while a pedigree relies on specific unions of otherwise unrelated individuals, and only truly applies to your own close relatives. |
| SIZE | Does your family history contain 10 individuals, or 100, 1000, or 10,000? This would make the difference between a small booklet, and a multi-volume set of books. |
| FORMAT | This is where you have the most control, but you should base the decision on the other four factors. Among your options are hardcover or paperback, the type of binding, and even whether to publish as a physical book, an e-book, a web page, or some other online family tree. |
| DEMAND | Is there a market in terms of sales? Can you realistically sell five copies or five hundred? |
| COST | How much money do you want to invest in this endeavor? Some options require up-front payment, and other options have other recurring costs. |
Traditional self-publishing options were extremely limited, consisting almost solely of privately printing your book through a printing press. There were two downsides to using this method. First, nearly all printing presses required a minimum order of books, whether 100, 500, or 1000. Second, all of these copies had to be paid for prior to delivery. The end result is that you would pay thousands of dollars for a box of books that would, more times than not, end up sitting in the corner collecting dust.
The late-twentieth century advent of desktop publishing and the easy access to photocopy machines brought another option. It was now possible to create your book on your home computer, print it out, and photocopy it. New printing companies arose that would make color copies and bind these printed copies. Unfortunately, you were also limited by the technology. The product was almost invariably printed on 8 ½ by 11-inch paper, as any other size would have had to be trimmed at additional cost. In addition to this, until recent years, photos printed by this method were scanned at a low resolution, which produced pixelation and other unattractive side effects. You were not generally held to purchasing a minimum number of copies, however, though the cost decreased with the more copies ordered. Smaller print runs often cost between $0.05-$0.25 per page. Add to this the cost of binding, and, though still more cost-effective, the price tag was larger than the value of the product.
Today, the options have expanded greatly with the growth of the Internet. You no longer have to worry about printing on paper at all, with websites and e-books available as options. Even if you would like to publish a traditional book, “on-demand” printers require no up-front payments to yourself, and only print your book as copies are purchased.
USING MY SERVICES, you can explore all of these options. In addition to being a professional genealogist, I am a published writer and experienced editor. I can help you publish your family history every step along the way – from the research to the writing to the editing to formatting your book for publication or digitizing your files and creating a web site.
Click here for a few sample pages from my own family history.
Email me using the form below to discuss your project. Get started today!