Stories To Tell Books

Scanning Photo Negatives for Use in a Print Book

2012-05-23T14:53:43Z

The general rule in scanning photos for inclusion in a print book is that they be scanned at a minimum resolution of 300 dpi. What’s important to understand is that means that the quality of the scan will be acceptable if it is printed at exactly the same size as the original. A 4”x6” photo scanned at 300dpi can be printed at 4”x 6” or smaller in the book. But that’s only part of the story. If you want to enlarge the photo size in the book the original must be scanned at a much higher resolution. The Scantips.com website gives a good summary of the basics of the relationship of scanning dpi and print size in an article Pixels, Printers and Video – What’s With That?

Stories and Storytellers

2012-05-21T01:04:59Z

The writer of fiction, the memoirist, and the family historian are all story tellers. To be sure, they tell stories differently. But in each literary form, the author is the teller of a tale. In that role what do these story tellers have in common? It is instructive to see what two of our greatest contemporary storytellers have said about their art.

How to Manage Photos for Your Self Published Book

2012-05-17T17:33:36Z

Self publishing authors who are working on manuscripts often try to mix two steps of the process of creating a book – writing and book design. This is unfortunate, not to mention often frustrating. What happens is that these authors try to format their books in Microsoft Word and place their photos as they create their manuscript. When they edit text the photos move from the spot they were originally placed. Word 2010 is better than previous versions, but the reality is that it’s not a tool for book design. A printer will ultimately require a manuscript designed in Adobe Creative Suite’s InDesign software. So let’s look at a better way to manage your photos as you create your book.

Fonts Are For Fun

2012-05-15T22:55:39Z

This one's just for fun - geeky fun. As you know, part of book design is having an eye for fonts. How do we learn about fonts? If you're of an academic mind, the best book on the subject, ever, is The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst. You can learn about the history of type, structural forms, shaping the page, and much, much more. Bringhurst writes with such passion that you find yourself deeply engaged with the rules of acronyms and ellipses, ligatures and page proportions.

No? OK, then, how about playing a goofy game online instead? Check out www.typeconnection.com, a wonderfully designed site that lets you think about type in a whole new way. It's set up like The Dating Game, the old TV show.

You pick your font and try to find a good connection for it. You need to choose a strategy for finding a good match - by (font) family, by (visual) similarities, or by dissimilarities, since "opposites attract", or by shared history and influences - perhaps the same period or font foundry.

Next comes the part where you might actually learn a thing or two. Like the dating game, you skim the bios of the fonts competing for a match. Pick one, and you go on a date. You can see how the two fonts pair up. Incidentally, you'll learn about ascenders and descenders, serifs and strokes and curls. Mostly you'll just enjoy this website's interactivity and the creative way they make fonts the subject of a game. Check it out!

Not All Facts Are Equally Important

2012-05-13T13:44:36Z

I am reading an excellent sci-fi novel, The January Dancer, by Michael Flynn. In describing Brigit Ban, one of his characters, Flynn says, “…she was the sort for whom a well- constructed narrative is worth a thousand detailed facts, and on occasion she was known to discard a fact or two to save the narrative.” Great description! Also, important advice for memoirists and family historians. Whether telling your own story or that of your family you have a mass of facts at your disposal. Creating a book involves choosing which of those facts to include and which don’t make it into the book. Not all facts are equally important.

Don’t Pay the Ransom! We Escaped From Technology Hell.

2012-05-11T20:54:56Z

Since you’re reading this, you know that the Stories To Tell website is back up. The site was down for parts of the last two days. We apologize if you couldn’t find us! We are in Cincinnati this week for the National Genealogical Society’s annual conference. We are having a great time meeting new family history enthusiasts and talking with them about books. We are encouraging them to go to our website to explore the variety of resources that will help them to get their family history books written and into print. We are happy to suggest that they use the new interactive downloadable questionnaire on our Publishing page titled Publisher? Printer? Just 10 Questions which will help people choose a printer for their books. We are excited because we are introducing the questionnaire at the Conference. Then Thursday morning we check the website as we do each morning and the screen displays a Server No Found message.

Why Does an Author Need an Editor?

2012-05-09T19:47:00Z

Authors published by traditional publishers counted on and received quality editing before their manuscript went to press. A self publishing author must make sure that his book receives no less professional attention before publishing it. Harriet Evans, author of the novel Love Always, said recently in a piece in The Guardian, “It is vital that an author has someone willing to be tough with them. It's in their best interests.” Why?

You - The Subject of Your Family History

2012-05-06T19:25:47Z

There’s a branch of the family tree that a lot of family historians ignore – themselves. People often express frustration about not being able to discover interesting stories as they research ancestors. They say, “I wish I’d asked ________to tell me more family stories before he/she died.” When future historians in your family look back, will they say that about your generation? They won’t if you preserve your own personal history.

You Don't Think Book Design is Funny? Watch This

2012-05-04T01:39:26Z

If you haven’t yet explored the TED talks (TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading) check them out at http://www.ted.com/talks. You’ll be sure to find something that speaks to your particular interests.

For me, that particular interest is in books – reading them, making them, sharing them. So this talk from Chip Kidd, king among book designers, pleased me to no end. Chip Kidd brought us the distinctive book cover of Jurassic Park, and one of the best-designed, all-around-best books on my reading shelf right now, Haruki Murakami’s IQ84.

Chip Kidd is clever, he’s funny, and he is right on about books! Check out his performance for a laugh, and maybe it will also inspire an idea for how you’d like your book to look.

Don’t Bore the Grandchildren With Your Family History Book

2012-05-02T05:13:00Z

“One in three children admit they don’t want to listen to their grandparents because they find them ‘boring,’” said The Mail Online reporting on a poll taken by print on demand publisher Blurb.com. “42% of parents say children tune out when elders start to speak about the past.” That’s a real challenge for anyone working on a family history book. The vast majority of those authors say they want to write a book to preserve the family history for the grand children. How can a family historian make sure she captures the grand children’s interest? One important way is to recognize the difference between researching and recording the family history and telling the family story.