Genealogy Book Phase One Complete

Anyone following my blog knows that I’ve been putting together a Print On Demand (POD) book of my genealogical research. The first book I put together was for my family—it contains info up to the present day generations.

I used Ingram Spark for my POD book. The quality is great and everyone has been pleased with the book. And I got a little giddy holding a book with MY name on it in my hands!

The cover is special to me for a number of reasons. First, it is the house that came to be called Warawee, where my great-grandparents lived and was the hub of the Warren family for 4 generations. Second, my father, Harold Warren Gans, drew the picture!

Warren Family front cover 2

Phase one, writing and distributing this version to my family, is complete. The next phase is making a public version to put out in the world for sale. I’m hoping that libraries, historical societies, and genealogical societies will be interested, as well as other amateur genealogists like myself who are researching those lines.

I am finishing my copy edits for this public version, and hope to have ebook, paperback, and hardback editions available no later than May.

This has been a long and involved process, but I have learned a great deal, and am very happy with the results so far!

CreateSpace vs. Ingram Spark

Any of you following along will know I am trying to self-publish a Print-On-Demand (POD) genealogy reference book on my family in particular. I had decided to use Amazon’s CreateSpace because so many people suggested it and it has been around a while. What I found was that because of the length of my book, I could NOT use CreateSpace (more on that below), and so I went over to Lightning Source, another POD company people had suggested. Lightning Source’s POD arm for small or self-publishers is called IngramSpark.

The following comparison of the two resources is necessarily incomplete, as I could not complete the process with CreateSpace and have not yet completed the process with IngramSpark. But it’s what I have found so far.

CreateSpace is very easy to use. However, I found their Submission Guidelines to be missing or misleading in key areas. When reading how to format your book’s interior, it tells you the gutter margin for 3 different pages count ranges, all the way up to 1,000 pages. What they don’t tell you anywhere in the Submission Guidelines (it can be found elsewhere on the website) is that there are maximum page limitations based on trim size and color vs. black and white options. Based on their Page Count table, the maximum number of pages anywhere is 828 (not 1,000) and if you choose to do full color, 480 is your limit. My full-color book, unfortunately, is 508 pages. Due to the nature of the content, there is no way I can cut 30 pages out. Which is why I went to IngramSpark. (I did confirm with CreateSpace customer service that I was correct and I COULD NOT print this book with them.)

IngramSpark is also not difficult to use. However, it will require more money for you to get started. At this point in the process, I have run across several fees:

  • $49 one-time set-up fee per book (waived if you have a 50 book drop order within a certain amount of time after setting up your book)
  • $11 annual distribution fee (if you are simply printing for your family and do not want distribution, this fee is waived)
  • ISBN fee. IngramSpark requires you provide your own ISBN number. You can purchase one for $125, or you can purchase batches of them for less per unit through Bowker. CreateSpace allows you to either use an Amazon ID number (not the same as an ISBN) or to purchase an ISBN through them (I think it was $10) or to provide your own.

So it is more expensive to use IngramSpark. The question you need to ask yourself is: Can I make my book fit CreateSpace’s limitations in a way that will not compromise the book’s quality? In my case, because I have a lot of photos and documents and charts, the answer was “no.”

The actual interior design process is the same–upload a PDF to their website. I will say that IngramSpark’s gutter margins are MUCH smaller than CreateSpace’s, probably due to manufacturing differences, which allows me to have larger photos and charts.

I have not used the cover designer for either system yet, so cannot know how they compare. I also don’t know about the quality of the final product or the tracking and royalty payment facets, since I haven’t finished the book yet.

Having to switch to IngramSpark has set me back, because with the much smaller gutter margins I need to re-size all my photos, graphs, etc. The text, of course, was easy to readjust. Still, I am pleased that I have an outlet to get this book out there in the way I envisioned it, instead of having to present it in a non-optimal way to force it into CreateSpace’s limitations.

I am slowly exploring this self-publishing world, both in ebook and now POD. It’s a fascinating journey! I will bring more info on IngramSpark after I have completed the process and have more to share.

Have you done POD? What has your experience been?

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Meetings of the Minds

Whew! A very long day of writing-related meetings has left my head spinning, but my inspiration pumped! There is nothing quite so super-charging as sharing ideas with a group of writers who share your passion. Who else could understand your chagrin at searching for the word “just” in your manuscript and finding it several hundred times?

 

The first meeting was three hours of the Writer’s Coffeehouse at Saxby’s in Doylestown, PA. Led by Jonathan Maberry, there was a wide-ranging discussion about all things publishing, but mostly focusing on self-publishing and POD (print on demand). We discussed the differences between self-publishing and POD, as well as when using those services could enhance your career or harm it. There was speculation that POD especially will become more “legitimized” as previously-conventionally-published authors who have been dropped by their publishers use PODs as an outlet for their work.

 

Then onto another marathon workshop, this one in Warrington, PA, also with the ubiquitous Jonathan Maberry, called Revise & Sell. Today we focused more on the revision process, our writing process, where ideas come from, and how we get into the heads of characters who are completely different from ourselves. That is part of the fascination (and scariness!) of being a writer. I am not an alien despot who thinks it is perfectly okay to enslave humans, but there is one in the science fiction book I’m shopping (The Forgotten Planet), so…

 

Days like today are exhausting (it also includes almost 2 hours of driving for me), but electric, as well. I always leave these workshops fired up and ready to write!

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