Seven Steps to Prepare Your History for Publication

A quality personal history is well-organized, understandable, and attractively presented. You have spent many hours and great effort to produce this labor of love. Take the time and make the effort now to produce a quality finished product that will be read and enjoyed by your family! Each of the following seven steps is time-consuming, so plan to take the time necessary for a completed project you will be proud of.

Hopefully this project has been of benefit to you. As I have "relived" many moments in my life by writing about them, I have laughed, I have cried, I have gained insight and realizations I had not considered before, and most of all, I have enjoyed the ride all over again!

Step 1: Proofread and Polish Your Writing.

Review your manuscript for content. Does it flow? Are there awkward sentences that need to be reworked? Is the vocabulary appropriate for your audience? Do you have good transition between sections, chapters, or stories?

Joan R. Neubauer gives us her ‘Tricks of the Trade’ for better writing. She advises, "As you read through your history, polish your writing by considering these things: 1) Look for verbs that end in "ing." If possible, change them to the simple past tense – that is, verbs that end with "d" or "ed." 2) Look for verbs that are part of the verb "to be" such as am, is, are, was, were, and been. These verbs make your writing passive. Try to use active, past tense verbs to make your writing more definite, exciting, and strong. 3) Look for adjectives and adverbs. Do not overuse them, and don’t use them in long strings. 4) Avoid the use of unnecessary words. 5) Be descriptive. Show the reader what you are talking about. 6) Avoid long, drawn-out sentences that string many thoughts together. 7) Try to vary your vocabulary. Have a good dictionary and thesaurus handy; use the tools of your software program to search for alternative words."

Use the spell checker and grammar check tools available in your word processing program. When checking punctuation, use the "search feature" (ctrl-F) to look for a space before periods or commas (commonly happens if you cut and paste text); look for the closed parenthesis mark ")" and check to make sure punctuation marks are inside the ) mark if the entire sentence is contained within the parentheses, or outside otherwise; look for mismatched pairs of parentheses, square brackets, quotation marks and dashes (that’s 7 searches in all – once each for (, ), [, ], ", ", and –).

You may wish to print a manuscript draft. I find it easier to see my mistakes when they are in print rather than viewing my computer screen. Make a duplicate copy of your file in another document. Change the page setup with margins of 1.5". Change the font to a fixed pitch font (like Courier New in 12 points). Change line spacing to 1.5 or 2. Print. You now how an old-fashioned "typed" manuscript to edit with plenty of space for editorial comments.

It would be best to have another person proofread your manuscript looking for typographical errors, spelling, vocabulary, grammar, and punctuation issues. Be open to their suggestions, but make sure to only make changes you feel comfortable with.

I personally have a difficult time catching my own writing errors, however, if I take the time to read it out loud, I am better able to identify errors and problems. Another trick is to read backwards. This is the best way to edit for grammar, punctuation, and typos. Begin at the back of the book. Examine the last sentence. If it’s okay, examine the next-to-the-last sentence, and so on. Go through sentence by sentence – not paragraph by paragraph – so you don’t fall into the trap of reading for meaning when you’re supposed to be focusing on grammar, punctuation, and typos.

Step 2: Format Your History

Take some time and browse through autobiographies and biographies in your local library to see what you like and what you don’t like with regards to their layout and format. Look at how they deal with font, page layout, page numbering, and chapter titles.

Font: Each font has character, personality, and a proper use. For a family history, you want a serif font that is dignified, respectable, and above all, readable. Many people prefer a font based on Times Roman because of its familiarity. Originally designed for a newspaper, its style has become widely used. Fonts such as Ariel, Bodoni, Garamond, Goudy, and Verdana are popular choices simply because they are readable. Whatever you decide, choose only one font to use throughout your history. The only exception to this would be the font for your chapter titles and cover page; you can be creative or use decorative fonts in those instances, but otherwise, keep the text of your history in the same font throughout.

Layout: Full page text or 2 columns? Justified or unjustified? Nonjustified text is easier to read. Justification sometimes gets in the way of comprehension if the amount of space between words is too great. This is especially a problem for fixed pitch fonts, large type sizes, narrow line lengths (as in two-column formats) and around illustrations. The trend in many professional writing groups is toward nonjustified text, also called ragged right or left justified.

Margins: You may want to increase the margin on the inner side of each page so when you bind your book the writing is not in the "gutter." Word processing programs can easily adjust the inner margin for you, but you need to tell it to do so. Look on your "page setup" screen and look for layout or margins. There may be a section to "mirror margins" or "book style;" you can then determine the size of the margin for the gutter.

Heading and Subheadings: No one wants to sit down and read page after page of text. Break it up with headings and subheadings. Headings should appear on a line by themselves. You may want these headings to appear in your table of contents; most software can generate the table of contents headings automatically.

Paragraph spacing: There are two styles. An opening tab of ½" or five spaces (informal style) or a blank line between paragraphs. Both are acceptable, so choose one and be consistent in using it throughout your manuscript.

Page numbers: In books, the left page number is always even and the right page number is always odd. Thus, page 1 is always a right-handed page.

Chapters: The chapter title is normally given special typographical treatment. Some of these treatments include flush left, flush right, or centering the text; putting ruler line above and/or below the title; using a different font; and emphasizing with bold, italics, small caps, or a larger point size. There should be extra space above and below the title. You might place the title a third of the way down the page (or about 1-2" from the top of the page).

Decide if you want new chapters to always start on the odd-numbered pages. The consistency helps the reader locate information. The right page is favored as the opening page of each chapter.

The first page of a chapter requires special treatment. We give the first page of a chapter a special appearance in order to help the reader find the beginning of a chapter easily. You might consider using a Drop Cap for the first paragraph.

Step 3: Add Photos

Scan photographs and other text-style documents at 300 dpi, generally scanned as a ".jpg" file type. Use image-editing software as needed to rotate, crop, or resize the photo.

When adding photos to your document, be sure to "anchor" them to the page or paragraph by using the "position" function of your particular word processor.

Add borders to set your pictures off and separate them from the text on the page. Consider using frames or decorative borders around documents such as certificates, announcements, newspaper articles or other "text-type" images.

Make sure you add captions for each photo, explaining who, what, and when. Captions generally go below the photo, either centered or left-justified. The font size may be smaller, bolded, and/or italicized to set it off as different from the text on the page.

Be selective in the type and number of photos you select. Remember, this is your history, not a scrapbook! Too many pictures are difficult for word processing programs to handle, causing them to be sluggish or even to crash. Be sure to divide your history into chapters, making each chapter a separate file. This will greatly help your word processor deal with the added memory needed for photos embedded in your text file.

Step 4: Edit/Proofread

Because you may have modified your page layout by adding titles, page numbers, photos, and so forth, you need to proofread and edit your manuscript again. Look for paragraph "orphans and widows" (single lines at the bottom or top of a page). You can adjust the page break to make sure there are at least 2 lines of a paragraph left on the page, or you may try to rewrite the paragraph to change the line count.

Use page break commands (ctrl-enter) if you want to force a line or photo to another page rather than just repeatedly hitting the Enter key. This will eliminate problems down the line.

Step 5: Additional Sections to Include

Your history may include one or more of the following sections. (This list of additional sections to include is taken from a publication entitled Preparing a Family History for Publication, prepared by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and can be found at FamilySearch.org in the Resource Guide section or follow this link http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/RG/frameset_rg.asp?Dest=G1&Aid=&Gid=&Lid=&Sid=&Did=&Juris1=&Event=&Year=&Gloss=&Sub=&Tab=&Entry=&Guide=Outline_-_Preparing_a_Family_History.ASP)

Title Page: The title page is generally the first page after the cover. It contains the title and, if applicable, the subtitle, your name as the author, as well as the place and date of publication.

Copyright Statement: Copyright statements generally appear on the back of the title page. They generally include information that tells readers when the history was published and who to contact for more information. A sample copyright statement is:
© 2007 by John Brown. All rights reserved.

Table of Contents: The table of contents lists chapters and sections of your history, and gives their page numbers. It also serves as an outline of your history and guides readers to the sections of most interest to them. Your word processor can generate this for you.

Other Preliminary Sections: These are optional pages that you may want to include.
Dedication - A dedication contains the name of the person to whom you are dedicating your history and a brief statement explaining why. It is usually written on the page after the copyright page.

List of Illustrations - A list of illustrations contains the name and page number of each picture, map, or illustration in the history.

Foreword, Preface, and Acknowledgments - A forward is a statement about the history written by someone other than you. A preface is a statement written by you and describes why you wrote your history, shows gratitude to persons or institutions who helped, etc.

Final Sections: These are optional sections as well, found at the back of your book.
Appendices - material or information not essential to the main body of the text but may be useful to readers who want more specific information about a topic. This might include certificates you have received throughout your life, talks you have given, papers you have written, etc.

Index - An index should list all of the individuals, place names, and subjects mentioned in your history.

Step 6: Final Edit/Proofread

Don’t forget to run the spell checker on your introduction, acknowledgment, list of illustrations, and all other pieces of text you have created. Check your titles, subtitles, headings and any headers or footers separately for grammar and typos. Do a final check of each page to make sure you have been consistent in every chapter, check to make sure all photos are captioned consistently, look at page numbers to be sure they are consecutive. Create your table of contents and index (if used).

Step 7: Publish the Final Product

Self-publishing with modern technology and tools is easier than ever before. You have the option of printing right from your home computer and printer, or taking it to a print center in town to copy and bind. Many print centers offer a spiral binding or a thermal plastic binding. You may want to put your history in a 3-ring binder and share it that way.

However, I would suggest that you at least get a quote from a local printer of what it would cost for them to professionally print and bind your book. There are also a variety of options available on the Internet. The cost difference between you producing your own copies versus a local printer or online "print on demand" service may be minimal or it may be quite a lot, but the you must weigh the differences found in the quality of your finished product.

I must admit that I am not an expert in this area as I am still in the process of doing this for myself. I have looked at http://www.lulu.com/ and would recommend that you at least look there. I’m sure you can find a number of "print on demand" companies online who do the same type of thing. The nice thing about these "print on demand" companies is that you do not have to order and print large quantities of books – only the number you desire. There is a difference in the cost per book based on how many you order, but that is true whether you print and bind your own books or send them to a printer or do it online.

If you decide to print on your home ink-jet or laser printer, make sure you have selected Best Quality printing for your printer. If your photos are scanned as color photos but you are printing in black and white, use the option to print in grayscale rather than color. Use a heavier weight paper such as 24-pound paper.

If you decide to go with a local printer, check with them to see how they want you to bring in your manuscript – they may want it in PDF format, they may want an electronic file, or the pages already printed out.