Book Notes | Moultrie Creek Gazette

Cousin Friendly Publishing

May 11, 2013 10:30 am , Leave a Comment , Denise Barrett

When you go to the Lulu.com bookstore and search for the term “genealogy”, you’ll get almost 3,000 results. A search for “family history” gives you more than 5,000. There are tons of genealogy and family history books in Blurb, Scribd, Smashwords and any of the other self-publishing platforms. These could be amazing resources for family history research except for one thing. After all the hard work and effort researching, writing and producing these publications, many of the authors can’t seem to find the energy to provide the descriptive information we need to find them.

As I search these platforms for publications to add to Moultrie Creek Books, it’s not unusual to find a title like A Family History or The Smith Family. Then you look at the book’s description and find something like “The history and genealogy of the Smith family.” All of these platforms offer plenty of space to include descriptive information, tags, keywords and categories yet for the most part, those areas are pitifully empty. All of this metadata is searchable and can help your research cousins find your work – and you – but only if you use it.

How do you help them find you? Take advantage of the description, tags and keywords fields to list surnames, locations, date ranges and any of the search terms you would use to find information about your family. The description can be used to define exactly which branch of the Smith family (descendants of John Smith of Smithville, Illinois) your book documents. The more information you provide, the more likely you’re research cousins will find you.

Lastly, don’t forget to let me know that you’ve published a family history. I would like nothing better to add your book to a shelf at Moultrie Creek Books. I’m working to make it THE place to find great family stories, but I need your help.

Posted in: Book Notes , Tagged: metadata, search-friendly, self-publishing

Make Your Book Page a Cousin Magnet

February 11, 2013 7:30 am , Leave a Comment , Denise Barrett

Sample Lulu book page

Unfortunately, book pages like this one are much too common on self-published platforms like Lulu.com or Smashwords. Someone has put in a lot of time and effort creating a 237-page book – and this is the 4th volume – but couldn’t find the time to provide a description of this book or add a few tags. This could be a fascinating history but how many people will fork out $20 to find that out without some kind of incentive?

Spend the time to describe the contents of your family history including the surnames, locations and time periods covered in the narrative. Use the tags or keywords fields to add even more information about the families discussed in your book. Regardless of the platform you use, your book page was designed with search engines in mind. Everything from the title to the description and on to the tags has been designed so that when a cousin searches for information on the Bennion surname, your book will get included in that search. Whether it will show up on the first page of search results or the 82nd will depend in part on the effort you put into the descriptive sections of your book page.

Every self-publishing platform includes all kinds of fields in the book’s catalog form to help describe its contents. Take advantage of them to include as much information as you can about your book.

Sample Smashwords book page

In this example from the Smashwords catalog, you’ll find a lot more information about the specific families included in the book. In addition to surnames, the author provides the time period covered in the book and used the tags field to add locations. Consider what keywords you used during your research to find information about the people discussed in your book and include those keywords in your book’s record.

Another useful tip – if your publishing platform includes the ability to present a preview of some of the book’s pages, make sure you include the table of contents as part of that preview. It will help us determine if your book discusses our branch of the family.

All of this will improve the chances that research cousins discover your book – and you. You spent a lot of time and effort creating this book. Take a few minutes to present it properly in the bookstore. It will be a very good investment.

Posted in: Book Notes

Creative Commons: Some Rights Reserved

January 7, 2013 7:30 am , Leave a Comment , Denise Barrett

If you look down the sidebar on any of my blogs, you will see the Creative Commons graphic. Follow the link to the license information and you will be pleasantly surprised that the license text is written in plain language. There is also a legal version of the license at the Creative Commons site and machine readable version (so search engines and web apps can identify licensed work).

While I do want credit for the works I create, I don’t mind if others use my works in their own creations. This is especially true in my family history projects. That doesn’t mean you have unlimited rights to my publications or postings or that you can claim them as your own. Creative Commons offers the flexibility to create a license that suits my needs. For example, the short name for my license is “attribution-share alike” which means you can use my stuff if your work includes credit to me and the work you create using my stuff will also be licensed to share to others. I don’t limit the number of copies you can have, keep you from giving my work to someone else or make you ask my permission to use my stuff. All I want is credit for my efforts and that you don’t try to lock my work up by including it in an “all rights reserved” copyrighted publication.

The beauty of Creative Commons is that it gives you the flexibility to determine how your work can be distributed. There are several different options you can incorporate into the license you use. Will you allow commercial use? modifications of your work? How will others attribute the work to you? At all times you retain copyright to your work.

Whether you are building an original work and including family treasures or offering scanned copies of existing photos and documents, Creative Commons gives you the opportunity to choose how those works can be used by others. Visit the Creative Commons site to learn more.

Posted in: Book Notes , Tagged: copyright, Creative Commons

Paperless

November 27, 2012 8:00 am , 2 Comments , Denise Barrett

I stumbled onto the most amazing book this weekend – Paperless by David Sparks. This book shows you how to go paperless using Mac tools. (David also writes for MacWorld magazine.) Although it is designed to get your personal papers under control, it’s full of great ideas for family archivists too. It shows you how to capture, process and manage your digital documents and discusses the tools needed to make it all happen.

Almost as interesting as the book’s content is the book’s construction. The book was built using iBooks Author. There are two versions – the iPad version [$9.99] and a PDF version [$10.00]. Both “books” include more than an hour and a half of video and screencast demonstrations of the processes discussed in the book. With the iBooks version, those videos are viewed right in the book. On the PDF version, when you click on the screencast’s title image, the video pops up in your QuickTime player.

If you are a Mac user and want to learn how to better capture, digitize and manage your family history archive – not to mention your personal papers, this book tells you and shows you how to do it.

Posted in: Book Notes , Tagged: archives, Mac, Paperless

Take control of your ebook library

October 24, 2012 8:00 am , 1 Comment , Denise Barrett

Having seen the strange story about the deleted Kindle library that has played out over the last few days, I was reminded once again how volatile the ebook world is right now. However, there are things you can do to protect yourself – and your library – from disaster – and it’s actually quite easy. Install the Kindle desktop app on your computer and use it to open each book in your Kindle library. This will download a copy of those books to your desktop. On my Mac, these downloaded books are stored in Documents > My Kindle Content. There’s a desktop app for NOOK users and those books are stored in Documents > My Barnes & Noble eBooks. Kobo also offers desktop apps, but I’m not sure where those files are stored.

Often your books will be listed using a numbering system that makes no sense when you look at your files. You will see the title and cover graphics in your reader app. I recommend using the wonderful Calibre [Mac, Win & Linux - free] library management app to organize all your ebooks. Each book in your library is displayed by title, author, cover and whatever other details you want to show. See the related reading list at the bottom of this article for more information on Calibre.

One other tip . . . A growing number of indie publishers feel that when you buy their ebook you should have the same rights you have with a print book. Their ebooks are being sold without the digital rights management (DRM) controls that prevent you from moving a book you bought from one device to another (Kindle to NOOK, for example). The Amazon bookstore identifies these books in their product details with the Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited item. Kobo details this in their Download options field. When you see this, you can share it with friends just as you would a printed book.

TIP: Although you can identify a book at Amazon and Kobo as having or not having DRM restrictions, once you’ve downloaded it to your desktop, that information is gone. If you want to know which books have DRM and which don’t, you might assign a “nodrm” tag when you add the book to your Calibre library.

Yes, you can protect your library from disaster. All it will cost you is a little time.

Posted in: Book Notes , Tagged: DRM, ereaders, evokes, Kindle, Kobo, Nook

Updating Books

October 4, 2012 8:00 am , Leave a Comment , Denise Barrett

One of the – many – advantages of digital publishing is the ability to update your ebooks quickly and easily. No, I don’t mean the research and writing effort is quick and easy, but the publishing effort is. As the author/publisher, that gives you several advantages. First and obvious, you can make changes to your book and let your readers replace the old copy with the new. Second, if you use it as a strategy when you first begin a book project, it can be used as a selling point too.

Let me explain what I mean by offering an example. As you know I’m an avid WordPress fan. Some time back I stumbled onto a book, Digging Into WordPress, which was offered in both a print and PDF format. The PDF edition appeared at first to be a bit pricey ($27) until I read further and found they offered a “lifetime subscription”. Every time WordPress got a major upgrade, they would update the book and distribute PDF copies to every subscriber. In a world where tech books are expensive and often outdated before you can get them home, this was a fabulous idea – and one that has more than paid for itself since I bought it. I’ve had either 3 or 4 updates since I bought my copy, with another one expected at any time.

Tech books aren’t the only books that change over time. Family history is often quite “fluid” as research continues to produce new and interesting facts to add to the existing narrative. Fortunately, by publishing digitally, you also have the ability to update your book and send your new revision to those who received the initial one. And, if you published using platforms like Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing, it’s also quite easy. While all the platforms offer a way to update your ebook once it has been listed in their bookstore, the Kindle platform will even send email notices to the people who have purchased your book to let them know an updated version is available for them to download. You will still need to use your blog, GoodReads, Facebook and other social venues to let your readers know there’s a new revision available and offer guidance on how to update their copy, but that effort could also inspire new readers to purchase your book.

For many of us who are taking advantage of the opportunities self-publishing provides, this can be a useful marketing tool – as my favorite WordPress authors have already discovered. I’m already collecting information to update my Digital Toolbox book which I hope to have ready in time for RootsTech 2013. My guess is this one will easily support a yearly update as technology continues to offer new ways to make our research life easier.

Take a look at your publishing platform and see what it takes to make your revised books available to your readers. If you are in the early stages of a publishing project and haven’t yet decided which platform to use, check into their ability to accept and distribute revised copies before making your decision. You could find it quite useful information to have later on. Protect your working files too. Even if you aren’t planning to ever update a writing project today, you could change your mind at any time . . .

Posted in: Book Notes , Tagged: digital publishing, publishing, revisions

A New Kindle

October 3, 2012 7:00 am , 2 Comments , Denise Barrett

My Kindle Paperwhite arrived yesterday. It’s a delightful improvement over my Kindle Touch. Beginning with the case, which is darker and made with a material that is more tactile so it offers a better grip, the Paperwhite is thinner yet a bit heavier. The touch screen is significantly more responsive – more to the level of my iThings. Then there’s the screen itself. WOW! The lighting is amazing. It’s easy to adjust the brightness level to suit your current reading environment. With the light turned down, the screen appears more like a standard e-Ink device, but when it’s pushed up to the maximum brightness it is gorgeous. I read for several hours last night with no eye strain. Most of the time, the brightness was set at about the 2/3s level which was very comfortable.

It will take a little time to adjust to the differences between the two devices. I kept trying to press the Home button last night – which doesn’t exist on the Paperwhite. Instead, you tap the top of the screen to display the menus. They have changed a bit too. Below you see the menu that appears on the home screen. The menu displayed within a book includes a second row for adjusting fonts, navigating the book and sharing content.

The main screen’s book list has been replaced with book covers. It will take a bit more effort to scroll through a large library, but I find the covers much more enjoyable than a list of titles. Browsing for books online remains a challenge. The bookstore’s screen design has improved, but it’s almost impossible to wander through such a massive selection of books even on my large computer screen. I take advantage of Amazon’s Wish List feature to capture books that catch my eye. It would be nice if a link to my Wish List was included on the main store front page.

I haven’t yet experimented with the 3G functionality of the device. It will get tested today at my office. If it can communicate in that black hole of a building where I work, it will truly be an amazing device.

My Kindle Touch has been a wonderful reading tool and I’m looking forward to enjoying the improvements included in this new Paperwhite. These little readers put a library into my hands that I can take anywhere. With it, I’ve got both entertainment and an impressive reference library with me wherever I want to take it.

Image courtesy of the Kindle Support site.

Posted in: Book Notes , Tagged: Kindle, Paperwhite, review

Finding Good Books

September 17, 2012 8:00 am , 3 Comments , Denise Barrett

I love e-reading. I split my reading time between my iPad and my Kindle Touch. The iPad is fabulous for graphical books, magazines and the news plus it’s the one place I can read all the book and magazine formats. The Kindle, however, is my favorite device for reading novels and “straight text” publications. It’s small, light and doesn’t change page orientation if I move in the wrong direction. My old eyes don’t handle small print well anymore so these devices have given me back the joy of reading.

Craning for a Book by gasp*yp via Flickr

My problem now is finding good reads. The down-side of ebooks is ebook stores. I personally think that Barnes & Noble has the best online bookstore. It’s very welcoming and easy to find the books you want. It even does a good job of giving you a pleasant browsing experience. The problem with all of them is there’s just so many covers that will fit on the screen at any given time. It’s no where near the number of titles you can scan on a physical bookshelf. I have to admit, I go down to Barnes & Noble every weekend for coffee, a bagel and to browse the books and magazines. Unfortunately, B&N can’t stay in business for long with too many customers like me. Even if I do buy something while I’m there, it will probably be a digital edition rather than a physical one.

One of the very nice things about a book store is it’s full of book people – people who enjoy reading. Most of my conversations while I’m drinking my coffee are about reading. Did you like that book? Have you read his latest book? What did you think? This is how I “find” most of the books I read.

There are several very good online reading communities who provide a place for book people to get together. One advantage to these communities is their reach. Since the reading community around my local Barnes & Noble store is relatively small, I don’t have too many people seriously interested in genealogy for book conversations. The reach of an online community provides the opportunity to create topic-specific groups who can then share the books they’ve read and offer recommendations.

One place I really enjoy is GoodReads. It’s a great place to connect with other readers and share reading suggestions. And, by building your library on GoodReads, the platform will offer recommendations based on your library and the ratings you gave each of your books. The group feature is delightful. I belong to a couple of genealogy groups, an English mysteries group and my local library’s group. Some groups are very active following a book club model while others are more passive – members listing the books they’ve read with their rating and maybe a review. You’ll be able to find a group – or two – that suits you.

Once you’ve created your account, you can start by exploring the platform. Look for books under the Explore menu by selecting Listopia. Here you’ll find dozens of book lists ranging from this month’s best books to books to become an informed voter to a number of lists for genealogy books. It’s addictive so be careful. As you wander, you’ll find others reading the same books as you and in groups you find interesting. As in any good social community, you can make connections with them and follow their status at GoodReads. You’ll see what they’re reading and learn what they think about the books they’ve read.

If you find a group that looks interesting, join it. Groups have their own book list, discussion board and even events. The English Mysteries Club is quite active with lots of general discussion and a more formal book of the month discussion.

Whether you join a group or not, you should rate and review each book you include in your library. This will not only help GoodReads find other books that you would like, it will help all of the rest of us learn more about a book. You don’t need to write a formal review, but please tell us a little more than “great book”. Why did you choose to read this book in the first place and did it live up to your expectations? Did it provide the information you wanted to know?

If you are an author, GoodReads has an Author Program to help authors promote their book(s) by giving them access to their target audience. It costs you nothing to participate and they offer all kinds of support to help you in your marketing efforts.

GoodReads will never be the little shop around the corner, but it can be a very satisfying hangout for book lovers. You can participate at whatever level works for you. And, unlike that little shop, thanks to the GoodReads apps you can take it with you anywhere.

Posted in: Book Notes , Tagged: community, GoodReads, reading

Book Stories

April 16, 2012 8:02 am , Leave a Comment , Denise Barrett

Since I “opened” Moultrie Creek Books, I’ve been on a fun and fascinating adventure of discovery. The quantity and quality of family histories is impressive and I’m delighted to see all the creative ways people have found to tell their stories. On of my favorite examples comes from the Scolnik brothers who found their father’s childhood sketchbook. They then scanned it and turned it into a beautiful book – Stuff I Remember – which they presented to him on his 80th birthday. Now we all can enjoy this time capsule of life in the Bronx in the early 20th century from the perspective of one little boy. Keith Gregson’s A Viking in the Family collects all kinds of quirky characters and stories found by people researching their families. Since most of us have quirks of our own, you’ll read this book with a smile on your face as you compare notes. In Stories for Oliver, Charles Wrightson created a collection of stories about his life, along with several poems, to pass on to his grandson. What a special gift!

I hope you will stop by Moultrie Creek Books and browse the virtual stacks. Not only are there amazing stories, you’ll also find a growing collection of local histories and transcriptions. One thing you’ll find in abundance is inspiration. If you’re looking for ideas for your own family history project, you’ll find lots of great ones here. And, if you need help pulling it together, you’ll find plenty of research guides and how-to books too.

Moultrie Creek Books wants to be the place for family history publishing. Once you complete your family publishing project, let me know and I’ll be delighted to showcase your book here.

You can receive bookstore updates on Twitter or subscribe to the feed and have the latest news and additions delivered to your newsreader.

Posted in: Book Notes , Tagged: bookstore, family history publishing, Moultrie Creek Books

Publishing Services page added

February 18, 2012 4:42 am , Leave a Comment , Denise Barrett

A publishing services page has been added to the Personal Publishing section here at the Gazette. It provides information and sources for various types of publishing services.

Posted in: Book Notes , Tagged: publishing, self-publishing, services

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Category Archives: Book Notes

Cousin Friendly Publishing

Make Your Book Page a Cousin Magnet

Creative Commons: Some Rights Reserved

Paperless

Take control of your ebook library

Updating Books

A New Kindle

Finding Good Books

Book Stories

Publishing Services page added

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