12 April 2013

Results of February's Family History Writing Challenge

     I can't believe it, but it's been over two months since I last posted anything here!  It's been busy for me, with a birthday, a vacation, work, planning baby showers and family reunions, the start of baseball season, and other hobbies.  I haven't done much in the way of genealogy, since my Ancestry.com and Genealogy Bank memberships expired and FamilySearch is often to buggy too use properly and I haven't gotten any road trips in.

     But I did get one thing done: I finished and published my Family History Writing Challenge project!  I finished my Albea Family History book, which I wrote using Blub.com's BookSmart program.  My goal was to write an overview of one family line, including as many documents as I could.  You can see a few of the pages below, which include census and marriage records, as well as cemetery photos.  I also included birth and death certificates, deeds, wills, voter registration, draft cards and photographs.  In the end, I covered seven generations in 78 pages.  I did this, in part, because I love the original documents, but also as a way to cite my sources without... citing my sources. 

     I love how the book turned out.  The quality is fantastic; my book feels sturdy and tight and the print quality is great.  I tried to make sure that my photos and documents were bright, with even contrast.  Just because it looks good on screen, doesn't mean it will turn out well in print!  But in the case of this book, everything turned out well.  

     The cost set me back a little, but wasn't prohibitive.  This book was created as a Standard Landscape, 10x8 inches.  I had a variety of options for publishing my book: will the cover be a hardcover with imagewrap, hardcover with dust jacket or softcover; will the pages be matte, lustre, standard or an upgraded lustre?  What color will the end sheets be?  Do I want an extra copy of the book in PDF?

     The cheapest option would have been a softcover with standard pages and would have cost $31.59 + shipping.  However, I had a coupon to save 25% (they send out lots of coupons!), so I decided to upgrade.  I chose the ImageWrap with Lustre paper, which cost me $51.21.  I also sprang for the PDF copy for $4.99.  Shipping cost $7.99.  After my 25% coupon, my book ended up costing me $51.39.

     I'm very happy with the end result and highly recommend using Blurb to publish your family history book.





3 comments:

Kristin said...

It looks great! And I like the way you integrated the documents. Great wrap up of the challenge. I have yet to take the step to a book.

Biff Barnes said...

Congratulations on publishing your book. It's a great accomplishment and a thrill at the same time. Good choice having Blurb publish it. All of our clients who have published with Blurb have been very happy with the results.
Best wishes,

Lynn said...

Congrats on a wonderful accomplishment. I love Blurb and highly recommend it. Working on a new book now as a matter of fact.

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