The big decision you have to make is whether you want a printed book or an ebook. You can make a photo book. Just captions. A coffee table book. That is quickest and easiest.
I spent an afternoon at an Apple shop making a book of photos of my photos and illustrations including one of a pianting I did on holiday in Italy.
Years later, when my home was burgled, my first thought was, if they took my painting, at least I have a copy of it in my book. If they took the book, at least I have the template on my computer. So a photo book can be handy in many ways.
But most people want to add text.
If your problem is the reverse, you have lots of stories but your photos are out of focus or lost. try Wikipedia.
Mount Rushmore, USA.
Advantages of E-books
Most printed books include a coloured cover. To save on the cost of coour photos inside, which can double the cost of a travel book and make it to expensive to produce and too expensive for anybody to buy, you can make a mosaic of your photos on the front and back cover.
However, if you want an ebook, you can have colour photos inside at no extra cost.
You can run one article onto the next with fewer restrictions on page size because everybody is reading on different sized devices. Ebooks can also be published instantly (once they have been approved).
A book has to be mailed out to you, then stored - unless you use print on demand. A book can be mailed direct from the printing house to the reader, but it still takes time. You also need time to check the sample copy, so factor in the time for that to be mailed to you.
Printed Books
Look at it this way. Supposing you want a book of all our my Xmas holidays, as a Xmas gift for your children or spouse or parents. You will have to allow time to be sent the first copy. It will probably have errors, such as the title too high or small or across the sky but the white lettering not appearing contrasting against the clouds. So you correct it and send for a second sample copy. Assuming you don't need a second correction, you then wait for a second lot of mailing with your five copies for your family.
Mailing and Publication Timing
The same would apply to a printed book produced for the public about Christmas dinners areound the world.
The same would apply for a book needed for your spouse's or children's brithday. Or your family's visit in the summer.
So if you plan on pubishing a seasonal book, or a book for the Xmas holiday gift market, allow extra time for the postage (Americans say mailing).
E-book styling
At first an ebook looks more difficult. the trick is to decide the style and layout before you start. If you begin by writing, or collating losts of articles from different places, your blog, your facebook page, and so on, you have to collate it all together and get the same typeface all through.
For the scientific and organized person, this is easy from the start, and satisfying and simple when done later. For the creative person who keeps trying new things and changing their mind, you need one hardback book, or a pinboard beside the desk, or a large clipboard, with a ready reference of your styles.
Better still, establish your own style forever and memoraize it. Books and newspapers always used to be in Times New Roman font. Printers and production people did not have to consult any reminder. it was standard.
Personalised Takes Longer
I produced two family istories for myself. I wrote the first for my late mother in law for her 90th birthday.
Compiling Family History
Every time we went out on a Sunday night to dinner, I asked her, in chronological order, about her life. her parents. Her childhood. Her teenage years. Her first marital home. The war years. Her two children. Recent years.
Labelling Holiday Photos
It is important to label your own famly photos and whilst your elders are alive to get them to add the dates and the name.
Funeral Photo
After my mother died, I asked my father if we had a good photo of my mother, perhaps one of their wedding or their younger days, to put on the table for the funeral tea. (I also wanted one to frame as a souvenir of my mother. But he was a practical person so the immediate concern of the funeral tea photo was what I conveyed to him.)
He was able to give me just one or two facts about each photo the first time we went through them. 'That's me.'
'That was before the war.' I wrote down, pre WWII. Or In the Thirties.
'That was in Venice.'
I asked him, 'When were you in Venice?'
I went through the photos a second time. I now had dates to match places, and places to match dates. If my mother was wearing a pola dot dress in Venice in the year 2000, then another photo of her in the same dress and shoes was probably in italy in the year 2000. Add my mother's full name and date of birth and date of death.
It hurt to add the date of her death. However, when I get even older or get dementia and die, and my box of photos goes to my daughter in law, she won't just have a photo of a mysterious person in a polka dot dress.
My daughter in law will be able to say to my son, "This is a photo of your grandmother in the year 2000 in Venice - before it had sunk so badly!". (Venice is building a barrage and could be sinking or sunk in 20 years time. Each year the floods are worse and the sole surviving vineyard is inundated by salt in 2020).
How to Adapt Old Stories
I inherited from my uncle, Monty, the handwritten scrapbooks he had written abut his family holidays. He was not a trained writer. I remember vividly a short story writer telling us not to start a story with, I got up early and had a cup of coffee. So what! That describes a million people. A cup of coffee is not exciting for the reader, unless it contains poison.
Suprprise Start
Every sentence whould contain contrast or surprise. At very least, I could have changed it to, "When my thin, balding, single, uncle Monty finished his big breakfast coffee at 7 am on a Friday in London, England and picked up his trains and plane tickets, the slim, young, black-haired Thai girl who he was to meet was already drinking her tiny 1 pm lunch time coffee in the Bangkok bar where she sought unsuspecting customers." That gives the game away too fast. I changed the last two words to foreign friends.
Colour Slides
He also gave me his colour slides, of all his holidays, before he went into a care home. He later phoned me and asked me to donate them to the Royal Photographic Society.
When I rang the photographic society, they declined to accept them. They asked, 'What's unususual about the photos?'
'Nothing. I haven't looked at them all. Maybe you could ..."
'Sorry. Our organization already too many family photo collections which have nothing unique of general interest and would take time to catalogue and space to store. Just keep them for your own family.'
I did not have the heart to tell my uncle and disappoint him. This was a big mistake - an expensive mistake.
He phoned and asked, "Have you phoned them and arranged to deliver them the photos?"
"Er. Not yet."
He must have thought I was lazy or unhelpful and uncaring. Because he cut me out of his will. I would have received eleven thousand pounds, a handy sum.
His photos are of sentimental value to me but not to anybody else.The trick is to find the story which makes the reader intrigued. Supposing I find a few mildly distressing stories about girls he befriended who turned out to be call girls. I could make that the end of the whole book. Or the end of the first chapter. Or make the whole book a guessing game. Who was the girl he met in 1939? Who was the girl he met in 1940? The punchline - he never married. The title - Why My Uncle Never Married.
Or, The Man Who Never Married.
Or maybe, Travellers Beware. The cons of yesterday were the same as the cons of today.
The joy of modern self-publishing is that you could produce a book about your grandparents' holidays in Italic writing and sepia. It would take hours of trouble and design, but end up unique, looking like those expesnive books where each one is designed in a style to suit the subject.
You can also pay a company to make one of those expensive-sounding personalised family books, where somebody sits with you for hours several days, listening to you, questioning you, recording your life history. Afterward they can add photos.
For a few thousand pounds or dollars, you can even souvenirs embedded in the book, cover for a truly personal record. You could make a book with a framed portrait on the cover to hang on the wall, or a series of embroideries to hang around your room or along the corridor of your castle or mansion like a Bayeux tpestry.
Set Style Printed Books
Whether you compile a printed book from your own stories, or travel articles, or from several authors, you need to have a page lenth and style and a chapter length and style.
I compiled my first tavel book from articles. Because the articles were all different lengths, the book editor did not know what to do.
Now I can see what went wrong and what you can do to put it right. If you start creating a poetry book from scratch, you can tell yourself or your contributors, I want poems on this subject written to this length.
My writing group, Harrow Writers' Circle, produced a local calendar with a seasonal photo and a poem. So we asked everybody to write a poem of 4 to six lines, on January and to send in a photo of a local landmark in January. Right up to December which was Xmas theme.
Author, Author! About the Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. (Not related to the actress.)
Author of twenty books including: Quick Quotations; Who Said What When.
See books and profiles on Lulu.com and Amazon, such as Wedding Speeches & Toasts. Also watch videos on YouTube.
See other posts on singers and statues and languages and destinations.
Online Toastmasters International Meetings
If you want to learn to speak the Queen's English, or Received Pronunciation. join me at my online toastmasters club,
Braddell Heights Advanced. Wednesdays, 7-9 Singapore time which is seven hours ahead of London, England.
https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=braddell%20heights%20advanced%20toastmasters
I am also a member of
Singapore Online.9-12 pm, Singapore time, Fridays. I am also a member of
Tampines Changkat Advanced.
Harrovians, Toastmasters Club, London.
Tiarel.toastmasters club, Singapore.
Toastmasters International Find a Club
https://www.toastmasters.org/find-a-club
Books by Angela
https://books.google.com.sg/books?id=upSEBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA21&lpg=PA21&dq=quick+quotations
lulu.com/shop/angela-lansbury/who-said-what-when/paperback/product
I spent an afternoon at an Apple shop making a book of photos of my photos and illustrations including one of a pianting I did on holiday in Italy.
Years later, when my home was burgled, my first thought was, if they took my painting, at least I have a copy of it in my book. If they took the book, at least I have the template on my computer. So a photo book can be handy in many ways.
But most people want to add text.
If your problem is the reverse, you have lots of stories but your photos are out of focus or lost. try Wikipedia.
Mount Rushmore, USA.
Advantages of E-books
Most printed books include a coloured cover. To save on the cost of coour photos inside, which can double the cost of a travel book and make it to expensive to produce and too expensive for anybody to buy, you can make a mosaic of your photos on the front and back cover.
However, if you want an ebook, you can have colour photos inside at no extra cost.
You can run one article onto the next with fewer restrictions on page size because everybody is reading on different sized devices. Ebooks can also be published instantly (once they have been approved).
A book has to be mailed out to you, then stored - unless you use print on demand. A book can be mailed direct from the printing house to the reader, but it still takes time. You also need time to check the sample copy, so factor in the time for that to be mailed to you.
Printed Books
Look at it this way. Supposing you want a book of all our my Xmas holidays, as a Xmas gift for your children or spouse or parents. You will have to allow time to be sent the first copy. It will probably have errors, such as the title too high or small or across the sky but the white lettering not appearing contrasting against the clouds. So you correct it and send for a second sample copy. Assuming you don't need a second correction, you then wait for a second lot of mailing with your five copies for your family.
Mailing and Publication Timing
The same would apply to a printed book produced for the public about Christmas dinners areound the world.
The same would apply for a book needed for your spouse's or children's brithday. Or your family's visit in the summer.
So if you plan on pubishing a seasonal book, or a book for the Xmas holiday gift market, allow extra time for the postage (Americans say mailing).
E-book styling
At first an ebook looks more difficult. the trick is to decide the style and layout before you start. If you begin by writing, or collating losts of articles from different places, your blog, your facebook page, and so on, you have to collate it all together and get the same typeface all through.
For the scientific and organized person, this is easy from the start, and satisfying and simple when done later. For the creative person who keeps trying new things and changing their mind, you need one hardback book, or a pinboard beside the desk, or a large clipboard, with a ready reference of your styles.
Better still, establish your own style forever and memoraize it. Books and newspapers always used to be in Times New Roman font. Printers and production people did not have to consult any reminder. it was standard.
Personalised Takes Longer
I produced two family istories for myself. I wrote the first for my late mother in law for her 90th birthday.
Compiling Family History
Every time we went out on a Sunday night to dinner, I asked her, in chronological order, about her life. her parents. Her childhood. Her teenage years. Her first marital home. The war years. Her two children. Recent years.
Labelling Holiday Photos
It is important to label your own famly photos and whilst your elders are alive to get them to add the dates and the name.
Funeral Photo
After my mother died, I asked my father if we had a good photo of my mother, perhaps one of their wedding or their younger days, to put on the table for the funeral tea. (I also wanted one to frame as a souvenir of my mother. But he was a practical person so the immediate concern of the funeral tea photo was what I conveyed to him.)
He was able to give me just one or two facts about each photo the first time we went through them. 'That's me.'
'That was before the war.' I wrote down, pre WWII. Or In the Thirties.
'That was in Venice.'
I asked him, 'When were you in Venice?'
I went through the photos a second time. I now had dates to match places, and places to match dates. If my mother was wearing a pola dot dress in Venice in the year 2000, then another photo of her in the same dress and shoes was probably in italy in the year 2000. Add my mother's full name and date of birth and date of death.
It hurt to add the date of her death. However, when I get even older or get dementia and die, and my box of photos goes to my daughter in law, she won't just have a photo of a mysterious person in a polka dot dress.
My daughter in law will be able to say to my son, "This is a photo of your grandmother in the year 2000 in Venice - before it had sunk so badly!". (Venice is building a barrage and could be sinking or sunk in 20 years time. Each year the floods are worse and the sole surviving vineyard is inundated by salt in 2020).
How to Adapt Old Stories
I inherited from my uncle, Monty, the handwritten scrapbooks he had written abut his family holidays. He was not a trained writer. I remember vividly a short story writer telling us not to start a story with, I got up early and had a cup of coffee. So what! That describes a million people. A cup of coffee is not exciting for the reader, unless it contains poison.
Suprprise Start
Every sentence whould contain contrast or surprise. At very least, I could have changed it to, "When my thin, balding, single, uncle Monty finished his big breakfast coffee at 7 am on a Friday in London, England and picked up his trains and plane tickets, the slim, young, black-haired Thai girl who he was to meet was already drinking her tiny 1 pm lunch time coffee in the Bangkok bar where she sought unsuspecting customers." That gives the game away too fast. I changed the last two words to foreign friends.
Colour Slides
He also gave me his colour slides, of all his holidays, before he went into a care home. He later phoned me and asked me to donate them to the Royal Photographic Society.
When I rang the photographic society, they declined to accept them. They asked, 'What's unususual about the photos?'
'Nothing. I haven't looked at them all. Maybe you could ..."
'Sorry. Our organization already too many family photo collections which have nothing unique of general interest and would take time to catalogue and space to store. Just keep them for your own family.'
I did not have the heart to tell my uncle and disappoint him. This was a big mistake - an expensive mistake.
He phoned and asked, "Have you phoned them and arranged to deliver them the photos?"
"Er. Not yet."
He must have thought I was lazy or unhelpful and uncaring. Because he cut me out of his will. I would have received eleven thousand pounds, a handy sum.
His photos are of sentimental value to me but not to anybody else.The trick is to find the story which makes the reader intrigued. Supposing I find a few mildly distressing stories about girls he befriended who turned out to be call girls. I could make that the end of the whole book. Or the end of the first chapter. Or make the whole book a guessing game. Who was the girl he met in 1939? Who was the girl he met in 1940? The punchline - he never married. The title - Why My Uncle Never Married.
Or, The Man Who Never Married.
Or maybe, Travellers Beware. The cons of yesterday were the same as the cons of today.
The joy of modern self-publishing is that you could produce a book about your grandparents' holidays in Italic writing and sepia. It would take hours of trouble and design, but end up unique, looking like those expesnive books where each one is designed in a style to suit the subject.
You can also pay a company to make one of those expensive-sounding personalised family books, where somebody sits with you for hours several days, listening to you, questioning you, recording your life history. Afterward they can add photos.
For a few thousand pounds or dollars, you can even souvenirs embedded in the book, cover for a truly personal record. You could make a book with a framed portrait on the cover to hang on the wall, or a series of embroideries to hang around your room or along the corridor of your castle or mansion like a Bayeux tpestry.
Set Style Printed Books
Whether you compile a printed book from your own stories, or travel articles, or from several authors, you need to have a page lenth and style and a chapter length and style.
I compiled my first tavel book from articles. Because the articles were all different lengths, the book editor did not know what to do.
Now I can see what went wrong and what you can do to put it right. If you start creating a poetry book from scratch, you can tell yourself or your contributors, I want poems on this subject written to this length.
My writing group, Harrow Writers' Circle, produced a local calendar with a seasonal photo and a poem. So we asked everybody to write a poem of 4 to six lines, on January and to send in a photo of a local landmark in January. Right up to December which was Xmas theme.
Author, Author! About the Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. (Not related to the actress.)
Author of twenty books including: Quick Quotations; Who Said What When.
See books and profiles on Lulu.com and Amazon, such as Wedding Speeches & Toasts. Also watch videos on YouTube.
See other posts on singers and statues and languages and destinations.
Online Toastmasters International Meetings
If you want to learn to speak the Queen's English, or Received Pronunciation. join me at my online toastmasters club,
Braddell Heights Advanced. Wednesdays, 7-9 Singapore time which is seven hours ahead of London, England.
https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=braddell%20heights%20advanced%20toastmasters
I am also a member of
Singapore Online.9-12 pm, Singapore time, Fridays. I am also a member of
Tampines Changkat Advanced.
Harrovians, Toastmasters Club, London.
Tiarel.toastmasters club, Singapore.
Toastmasters International Find a Club
https://www.toastmasters.org/find-a-club
Books by Angela
https://books.google.com.sg/books?id=upSEBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA21&lpg=PA21&dq=quick+quotations
lulu.com/shop/angela-lansbury/who-said-what-when/paperback/product
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