Publishing
family history
Affordable Publishing of your
family history
Since most family historians
are using genealogy software these days, it makes it incredibly easy to
manipulate that information into a document or webpage. What’s
really exciting is how easy it is to publish that information into a
book.
Not only is it easy, it can be ridiculously
inexpensive. My favorite print-on-demand book publisher is
lulu.com. You can print a 200 page book for under $10. Or a 200
page hard back book for a little over $20. When I say “a” book, I
mean you can print just one book for this price. If you print
more, you can get a volume discount. For additional money, you can
go all color. And if you want to sell your book online, lulu will
handle that too! So, if other family members want to purchase the
book, they can do so online, and lulu takes care of all the fulfillment
and payment processing. (You can even build in some profit for
yourself.)
First, you need to join lulu, it’s free.
Once on the website, if you need any help, they have an online
assistant, who is on instant messenger. This is a great feature! If you
get stumped during the process, simply click on the Live Help button,
and help is just seconds away.
Unlike other sites, that require you send
in a request for pricing, lulu has instant price calculators. Once
you decide your size, binding and color option, you can find the
recommended margin formatting for your document.
The easiest way to get your book ready to
print, is to have the information in PDF format. You then download the
PDF file at the lulu site, and instantly (almost) your book is ready to
be printed. One important thing to remember, the fonts will need to be
embedded in the PDF file, for lulu to accept the file correctly.
As for the cover, you can create your own,
by following the instructions at the website, or use one of their
templates.
