Researching House History Presentation

Today was my presentation at The Heights on how to research the history of a home. I arrived an hour early because I have a phobia that the electronic equipment will not work and I'll be stuck with a poor presentation. While some talks can be handled with no visual aids, this particular one would be very difficult to do without my slides. The first words out of the tech guy's mouth were that he could not find the cord to connect their projector to my laptop. Words to warm every presenter's heart. He ended up finding a different projector and we went to work connecting the two machines. I normally work with a Mac, but most facilities do not own the cord to connect a Mac to their projector, so I brought Jim's PC laptop along. We finally got the two machines to talk to each other, but the full slide would not show up on the big screen even though it was full screen on the PC. While the situation was not ideal, I could make do with it if I had to in a pinch. Fortunately someone in the audience suggested that I press Control, F7. Sure enough, that did the trick! And I was ready to go 10 minutes early.

There were only about 10 people in the audience, which was a little disappointing. As Jim pointed out, it takes as much work to prepare for an audience of 10 as an audience of 1,000. (Well, except for running all the handouts!) But those who did attend were very engaged and had a few suggestions on resources they had used in researching their homes that I had not even considered. Plus I sold 3 copies of my book, and considering that 2 of the people in the room already had it that is not too bad. I am hoping that I can do more of these presentations because I really enjoyed it.

As an update to the CreateSpace debate, both the books I processed through CS are now live and available on Amazon. Woo, hoo!

CreateSpace Part Four

After much thought and input from others I have decided to go ahead and place From Buckeye to G.I. and Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed(room)? on Amazon through CreateSpace. If you do not have the original print books in front of you, I don't believe you will think anything of the ink intensity that is used by CreateSpace. I approved the book proofs and they immediately became available on the CreateSpace e-commerce site. It will take 7-10 business days for them to appear on the Amazon website. It will be interesting to see if I get any sales on Amazon.

On Saturday I will be doing a presentation on how to research the history of a home in conjunction with the City of Richmond Heights. The city is celebrating its centennial in 2013, and they have a year's worth of activities lined up. I am honored to be part of the festivities, and am hopeful we will have a good turnout. If I sell some books at the event, that would be great as well.

Speaking of House History...

Century Home, Webster Groves, MO

Thursday night I gave a presentation on how to research the history of your home to the Kirkwood/Webster Groves branch of the American Association of University Women (AAUW). I was unfamiliar with the organization, but apparently one of their members knew of my book on researching house history and they asked me to come to their monthly meeting. In case you also have not heard of the AAUW, it is an organization dedicated to advancing equity for women and girls through advocacy, education, philanthropy, and research.

Because my topic is obviously so focused on house research, I was a little concerned that some members of the audience would not be interested. I should have know better with a group of women (and one man) who live in or near Webster Groves and Kirkwood. Once we finally got the provided projector to recognize my laptop, things went smoothly. They had a lot of great questions, which always makes for a more interesting event for everyone.

It was helpful for me to do the presentation at this point because I am giving a talk in Richmond Heights after the first of the year as part of their centennial celebration. From the questions raised at the AAUW meeting I can see that there are a few more slides that would be helpful if included in my slideshow. Though I did not sell any books Thursday night, I did have the opportunity to talk about all of them. I was also able to give a little insight into why people should be writing stories down - their own, an ancestors, or those of their house.

Note to Self

Just when you think the ball is in someone else's court and you can take a breather, SLAM - back it comes at ya. The book designer informed me that I needed to convert all the color photographs to black and white, and to change all the illustrations from jpgs to tiffs. That is in addition to changing all 160 items to 300 dpi. Yee, haw! So my note to self is that if in the future I decide to use any photos and/or illustrations in a book, to first check with the designer to see what format everything should be scanned or copied to before I do anything else. I have had to redo a lot of steps on this project.

I finished all of the changes this afternoon; now I just have to figure out how to get all the images back to the designer. They are too large to email, even if I zip the file, so last time I sent everything to him on a thumb drive. I could do that again, but I am hoping to find a solution that involves an e-transfer instead. Hopefully the designer has an answer, although you would think he would have suggested it last time.

Tonight I am giving a presentation about publishing to an adult education class on writing and publishing a non-fiction book. I have done this in the past, and it is always fun to hear what book ideas people are working on. It is so great to be writing in a time when you can actually get your books into the hands of readers without being held hostage by the traditional publishing industry.

Good Day - Presented and Sold a Few Books

Today was my first formal presentation on how to research the history of your house. The Webster Groves Historical Society, as the sponsor, provided wine, cheese and crackers for the attendees. One of the members sat at the table near the entrance and collected money from the book sales for me, so that was really helpful. I donated 20% of the sales from today to the Society, so they had extra motivation to push the books. We ended up selling 6 books. Considering the audience consisted of about 20 people, some of them couples and a few who I knew had already bought the book, that was pretty good. It was a comfortable size in terms of number of attendees as I got fairly decent audience participation.

Jim had volunteered to come with me, which was great as he advanced the PowerPoint presentation for me. We had a moment of silent panic at the beginning when my computer froze. We had arrived 30 minutes early to set up the equipment and make sure all was in working order. Of course at the critical moment it would fail. I made a joke about technology and then quickly restarted the laptop. Fortunately we were error free after that. I'm pretty happy with the slide presentation as a whole. There are a couple of other graphics I would like to add for next time, but overall it flowed nicely. Feedback from the people who came up to speak with me was favorable, so that was good to hear. Bring on the next one!

Point Me Towards the Presentation

As I mentioned earlier, a couple of months ago an organization invited me to give a talk about how to begin the process of researching your home. They said they would do all the promotion and provide refreshments, and that I could sell my books as well. Sounded like a win-win. The promotion has not been forthcoming. There was a brief mention of the talk in their winter newsletter, which goes out to the members. It didn't say where the presentation was being held or who to call for more information. A few weeks ago the President told me she was going to mail postcard reminders to all the members, and those never went out.

Of course I told the reporter from the Webster-Kirkwood Times about the meeting, and thankfully she put that info in the article she wrote about me. The talk did appear in the calendar section of the Times today, albeit in the Saturday listing and not Sunday. And the organization took out an eighth page ad, spelling my name incorrectly and not mentioning what I will be speaking about. Hopefully people will get the gist from the title of my book, if they can read it in the minuscule ad. I am very concerned that there will be a very small turnout due to lack of publicity.

Despite all this, I have been diligently working on my PowerPoint presentation. Since Katie is home she was able to show me how to do a screen capture so I can put information about the St. Louis County website into my slides. That was cool to learn. I'll probably have her look at my slide show when I'm done as she may be able to pretty it up for me. No matter what the turnout, I needed to get this presentation prepared anyway. We'll see what the response is to it.

Great Article in the "Times"

The article about researching house history and my book was in the Friday issue of the Webster-Kirkwood Times. Marty Harris did a wonderful job of explaining how I went about the research to receive my Century Home plaque, and why I felt compelled to write a book to help others with the search. She also put in a nice plug for the presentation I will be giving Sunday on how to begin the research process.

I am extremely happy to have that advertisement since the Webster Groves Historical Society, which is sponsoring the talk, has done little to promote it. They had a little blurb in the winter newsletter, noting the date and the time, but it didn't even mention where the program would be held or who to call for more information. A post card was supposed to go out to all the members, but I haven't gotten mine yet. It is a little frustrating as I was assured they would do all the promotion for the program. These types of presentations are where I believe my books will be sold in greatest numbers, not through individual bookstores.

Speaking of sales, I sold another book at the St. Louis Publishers Association meeting last Wednesday. And the Missouri History Museum Library and Research Center purchased a copy for their facilty as well. I was hopeful that once they purchased a few copies to sell in the Missouri History Museum gift shop that they would decide they needed a copy for the library as well. Because their library offers a House History 101 course, that will be great exposure for my book.

Marketing 411

I have been inundated lately by people asking me how the books sales are going for "Who's Been Sleeping..." While I was rather pleased by the sales in November and December, I haven't sold a book since. Could that be because I haven't done any marketing since then??? Yes, I do believe there is a direct correlation. I have a marketing plan for the book. And the reason I have a marketing plan is because I completed a book proposal. It's not a failure to plan, but rather a failure to implement the plan. I got caught up in developing my second baby and left my first born to fend for herself. Shame on me!

Today I emailed the Missouri History Museum to inquire about the possibility of selling the book in their gift shop. I attached copies of the book cover (front and back), and suggested that the manager visit my website. Then I nonchalantly threw in that the Missouri History Museum Library and Research Center is mentioned several times in the book, and that one of the librarians there helpfully reviewed Section Two of the book. Hook, line and sinker? Hopefully. A second email with attachments was sent to the Missouri History Museum Library and Research Center in the hopes that they will purchase a copy of the book for their library.

I still believe that the best way to really get my book out to its intended audience will be through giving talks on the subject matter of house research. I am excited about my first presentation to be held next month at the Hearth Room. The Webster Groves Historical Society is the sponsor, and will promote the talk and provide food. What a great way to get this adventure off the ground!

ISBN It Is

There will be an ISBN on my dad's book I've decided, after much deliberation and input on the LinkedIn Forums I belong to on the Internet. That means I have to step up my game on the design of the book though. As it will be published by my company, Provenance Publishing LLC, I want it to look professional and not like I did it in Microsoft Word. Which is what I did.

Katie came up with a nice cover design, I think. She did it in a 6" x 9" format as she understood that was the size I was doing the book in. I actually had decided to go with 8 1/2" x 11" because of all the documents I have in the book. I like the smaller size idea because I think it fits the type of book better; I'll just have to see if my illustrations are legible in that size.

On a different note, I just secured my first speaking engagement for my "Who's Been Sleeping..." book. The Webster Groves Historical Society has invited me to give a presentation on how to research house history on March 21st in the Hearth Room behind the Hawken House. They will provide the marketing and the refreshments; I just have to bring books to sell. Sounds like a winner all the way around!

I'm Excited!

Tonight the President of the Webster Groves Historical Society called and asked if I would be interested in doing a talk on house research for the society. Would I, would I? Peg leg, peg leg. Oh wait, that's an old joke. They would like to hold it in the Hearth Room behind the Hawken House, and of course they would want me to have my books available as well. They will take care of all the publicity. She said she thinks it is a really interesting topic, and mentioned how great it would be for the audience to hear about it from the author. That's me! How cool is that?

This is exactly what I want to do with my book - help people get started with the researching process. I always figured that I would be able to sell more books with presentations than through a book store, and I really enjoy public speaking. Weird, I know. I used to do it all the time at my old job, and still give classroom presentations to kids about composting. But I love working with adults, especially if they are interested in the topic. (Not always the case in my former job - doctors did not always like to learn about why they were being sued for malpractice.)

The calendar has not been set yet, so I don't know when my talk will be (somewhere between March and August was all she knows at this point), but now I have the proper motivation to get my presentation put together. Who's been sleeping in YOUR bedroom?