Creating a Photo Book

Old Chain of Rocks Bridge

In 2014 the St. Louis region celebrated the 250th birthday of the City of St. Louis. A major portion of the festivities involved the placement of 250 (plus a few to grow on) fiberglass birthday cakes around the area. Painted by local artists, the cakes were placed primarily in locations of historical significance. The Cakeway to the West adventure was part scavenger hunt and part history lesson. It took me to places in the St. Louis area that I never knew existed as well as locations I had heard about but never visited. At the end of the journey, over 4,000 photographs had taken up residence on my hard drive, and three of them ended up in a juried art show! I knew that I wanted to put together a book that would have one cake on each page, meaning I was looking at printing a 250+ page, full-color book.

The online print on demand companies such as Amazon's CreateSpace or Lightning Source have gotten poor marks for the quality of color photos in their books. There are, however, numerous options for producing photo books online. They are mostly designed for casual photographers who want to turn their photos into a keepsake book - not one that they intend to sell. While these services produce photo books you can be proud of, they are an extremely expensive option. Most of them have page limitations that ruled them out for this project. I put together a comparison of the most popular companies.

photo book comparison  

From the illustration you can see that there was only one company that was capable of producing the desired number of pages for my book. With Blurb, you can either produce your book online, which is how the other services work, or you can download their software and work on the book on your computer directly. While I have used both Shutterfly and Snapfish in the past, I have never worked with Blurb before. I tried both their online service as well as the software, and I never quite got the hang of either one of them. Trying to add additional text boxes or photos to the pages was difficult, at least for me. In the end I decided that because this project was so immense, I did not want to take the time for the learning curve Blurb was presenting. I do know other people who have used the service and have seen some of their books, and Blurb does offer a high quality product.

I went with Snapfish due to the fact that they offer a maximum of 150 pages, so I knew I could get my book done in two volumes. Both volumes are now complete, and I have received Volume I. The book looks great, and I am pleased with the result. If you are looking to create a photo book of your own adventures, there are some good choices available for you.

Cakeway to the West book cover

Cakeway to the West interior page

Cakeway to the West interior page

Publishing Your Own Book

Kim Wolterman kicks off the class

The St. Louis Publishers Association (SLPA) offers a book publishing class through our local community college once or twice a year. I usually organize the class and then serve as the moderator, also throwing in my two cents worth when warranted. Our most recent class was a full house, with thirty writers signed up. I like to ask each person to give their name and a short sentence or two on what they are writing about before the class gets started. I think it is fun to see the genres people are writing about, and it also offers an opportunity for folks to connect with other attendees who might be writing about a similar topic.

Over the course of four hours we cover traditional versus independent publishing, getting your book into print, book design, ebooks and how to get your book into the marketplace. It is a lot of material to cover in the short amount of time we have, but the purpose is to give an overview of the whole process of what to do once you have written your book. From our perspective as an organization, we want to make sure that authors know about our monthly meetings. All of the topics covered in the class, and more, are discussed throughout the year. For all of us, the SLPA was the place where we learned what to do next and made the connections to get the steps done. If you are a writer, check to see if there is a publishers association in your area. The help and support you receive will be invaluable.

National Genealogical Society Tips for Writers

Virginia capitol building

Last week I attended the National Genealogical Society's annual conference, which was held in Richmond, Virginia. In an area that is chock-full of the history of the birth of our country and the wars that shaped the future of the United States, it was easy to let my mind roam free on the stories I want to tell about my ancestors. I was especially pleased to see the large number of sessions in the program that pertained to writing, and I took advantage of a number of them. Here are my top ten take-aways for writers from the conference:

1. Use Timetoast Timelines to create and share timelines for your story.
2. When using newspapers for research, don't just look at the town your person came from. Look at neighboring towns and county wide newspapers as well as they often covered events from other locations.
3. It is not how much material you have but what you do with the material that matters for your story.
4. Start your story with something that grabs your audience. It doesn't necessarily have to be the beginning.
5. Show, don't tell, your story.
6. Choose events that have meaning to you, because you will write the story better.
7. In non-fiction, stick to the facts but make them zing!
8. End each chapter with another hook or cliff hanger so the reader wants to keep reading.
9. If you are going to write a family history narrative, make sure your historical facts are accurate.
10. You need to know who your audience is BEFORE you begin to write!