Advice Needed from Local History Writers

[MV64]

Hello,

Has anyone around here ever written and published local history? I'm in the early stages of researching a project, and I'm aware of several local history publishers, but I have a few questions.

1) Does anyone have any tidbits of advice for those writing local history?

2) Is self-publishing a better option than traditional publishers? I work at a bookstore and local history books sell really well, but I'm too much of a micro-manager and so I worry that a publisher might just botch the whole thing (I've seen this happen as well).

[DrZoidberg]

1) Keep your audience in mind. What's your market? Why should anybody not living in the local area give a shit? If your potential buyers only live in that one area, what percentage is likely to want it, let alone buy it? Are you basically just writing for yourself and your friends? If you expect anybody outside your local area to buy it you need a hell of an angle. It needs to connect to something of universal interest.

2) You want your publisher to put their nose in your book. Their focus is on selling your book, not presenting it in the way you want it to be presented. The whole point of an editor is to get fresh eyes on it. Authors tend to get a bit blind on the big picture and know their work so well they focus too much on details. You have somewhat of a privileged position working in a bookshop for knowing what works.

Unless you're already an established author I suggest avoiding self-publishing. Authorship being a solitary pursuit means that authors tend to adopt plenty of very bad habits. They really need someone else who's talented and has a vested interest in your book to whip them on their fingers and wean them off the many crutches in language. Wives and friends are always good, but without a pro its difficult.

There's the trope, "rejection is natures way of telling you to write a better book." It is very true. If you self publish you have no idea whether your book is good enough. Squeezing through the eye of the needle that is a publishing house, is frankly your best option. I'm not saying you can't sell books, or even get successful as a self-publisher... but it's a dodgy road that might lead you to waste years doing things that a publisher would have known would never work.

A friend of mine who lives in a castle collaborated with a photographer and made a coffee table book about his home. My friend couldn't write for shit. But it didn't matter. The subject matter was so interesting that he got published anyway. It's not impossible, if you got a good angle. He didn't make any large sums on it, but he got published through a real publisher.

My two cents.

[khalleron]

I think you need to decide what you want to happen. Are you writing because you have a story to tell, or to make money, or for another reason?

If you know what exactly you want to accomplish, then you (and we) would have a better idea of the route you need to get there.

I say "bah" to just about everything DrZoid says above me. Publishing is not sacrosanct, especially nowadays. Publishers are looking for the next blockbuster, and that is *all*. You might find a small publisher who would take on your project, but you'd still be responsible for the marketing yourself, that's how it is these days.

If Tolkien were writing The Lord of the Rings today, it would never get published - his publisher expected to lose money on it. They published it because it was good, not because they thought it would sell.

So if you need editing, copy proofing, cover art (and you do), you can either hire it, do it yourself, or flog it to publishers.

How much time and/or money are you willing to devote to this? That will tell you more than anything which route you ought to take.

[MV64]

My motivations for writing this book are several, but financial reasons are at the bottom of my list of priorities. I know it's nearly impossible to live off of writing, and despite the popularity of local history books in my area I can't imagine most of them selling more than a couple hundred copies (the popular ones). So getting rich is not in the cards.

My main motivation is two-fold. There hasn't been a true history book written on my area since the '70s, and the book has many flaws (I am reading it for research right now). I think I could really approach the history from a fresh angle. Most of the books published on my area are pictorial books, not text-based histories.

Also, I recently graduated with a BS in History and Political Science, and will (hopefully) be starting grad school in the fall. I have set this personal goal for myself because I never finish any of my writing projects and I feel that this is a project that presents the best opportunity of completing. And what's more, I feel that I could write a much more readable and interesting history than has been published before (to my knowledge, I'm still in the early stages of research).

I have connections at local history societies, my main concern would be getting the book into truck stops, various stores, etc. to be sold. My area has a lot of public events and attractions where I'm sure I could sell my book during touristy months, but the stores are a concern of mine if I self-publish.

I'm willing to devote as much time as it takes, but I hope to have much of it done before fall. I'm only working part-time and since this is something I've been wanting to do, I'm willing to devote a lot of effort to finish this project. I figure that with the time I have to devote to it, my skills as a researcher and writer, and my access to many research materials, 6 months is a reasonable timeframe to complete research and make serious progress on the book, if I don't finish it completely.

As far as money goes, I haven't looked into how much I would have to dish out to self-publish at this point.

So in short, my ultimate goal is to personally achieve something significant to my community, provide a service (I love bringing history to the public, and I happen to live in a town that has had quite a colorful past) and have a published book under my belt.

[khalleron]

Well, since it sounds like you're young and have the time to spare, it probably wouldn't hurt too much to flog it around to some publishers or agents first.

But since you're going to grad school and probably won't have time to market it, which you'll have to do whether you get a publisher or not, it might be better to go ahead and write it, then let it mellow while you finish school.

Good luck to you!

[MV64]

Well, I'm kind of concerned about my idea being taken. Let me ask another question then: Is anyone familiar with writing local history books when other authors have already written histories?

I'm getting a little skiddish as I go along here because there have been a few older history books written and an amateur website set up with entries for events, citizens, etc already for the area. I know that obviously local history is fair game, no one can monopolize public information like that, but I'm worried about being too similar and encroaching on copyright infringement. I never plagiarize and I know all about citing sources and whatnot, but I've only ever written academic things before. This is my first foray into real commercial writing. Obviously I'm including my own framework and analysis to the book, as well as original research, but many of the events and people have already been written about, just not in the detail or narrative that I want to present.

Has anyone had any problems with writing local history if other books already exist on the topic?

[Libby Cone]

Has anyone had any problems with writing local history if other books already exist on the topic?[/QUOTE]

Um, yes.
I write historical fiction. I try to use as many real characters and situations as possible. I decided to write my MA thesis as a novel. It was about the German occupation of the Channel Islands during WWII. I worked on it for several years, failed to attract an agent or publisher, and then published it myself. Little did I know that the late, great Mary Ann Schaffer was working on "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society." My work turned out to be its "prequel"! It actually did attract a publisher, and Duckworth has it out in hardcover in the UK and Kindle edition in the US; a paperback is planned this summer. But that is an example of bad timing.

My second book, about an excruciatingly obscure Dutch settlement in Colonial Delaware, sat on my hard drive for a year. Then I finished it and uploaded it to Kindle. I did one last Google search (I hadn't done one in the year the ms was sitting on the back burner) and found that a Dutch guy had written a Ph.D. dissertation on the same topic. I contacted him, read the dissertation, and found that I had my elder protagonist married to the wrong wife, my junior protagonist doing the wrong handicraft, and other errors. His knowledge of Dutch was a big advantage. I wound up changing the names of the characters and saying it was "loosely based" on the historical settlement! It sounds like you are doing 20th century history, so you don't have to travel to Europe to do research, but I hope my experiences are illustrative.

[MV64]

Here's an interesting twist to my original question:

Has anyone attempted publishing their local history book in e-book format?

It seems to me that this wouldn't sell well: Readers are generally older and less tech savvy. A lot of the attraction of local history books is the gift value: i.e. photographs, nice binding or what have you.

Would it be a worthy avenue to publish a local history book in e-book format only?

[Libby Cone]

I don't know much about epublishing a book with photos; they may look good on the iPad. However, there is little downside. Publishing on the Kindle is free, as is Smashwords (and it's about ten bucks to get an ISBN so you're listed in the iBookstore). You could then submit it for review by sites that include ebooks (like Librarything's Member Giveaway) so you can get an idea for how a hard copy might be received.

[seasong]

If you are writing local history. About your town for example. Make the project the best way you can. and show it to the people who have someting to say in your comunity. The might help you with the cost of printing. If it is a smaller prolect like a booklet. go to the resaurants and ask if they are interested in an add. in your booklet (They must pay you for this) A lokal bookstore can maybe sell it for you, but ofcourse they take some prosent.(But it is better woit thirty prosent of something that houndred prosent of nothing)

Best regards
seasont

[MV64]

Well, unfortunately the only local book stores are two Barnes and Noble's for the entire region. My best bet for selling the book would be to libraries, gas stations and used book stores, unfortunately.

The e-book thing would be a fun experiment, but isn't it nearly impossible to get a book published in print after you already made it into an e-book? Publishers aren't willing to do that, I thought. So I've been holding off on that worried about blowing my chances of one day seeing it in print.

[seasong]

Maybe they have a tiurist office? :-))

[Libby Cone]

Originally Posted by MV64

Well, unfortunately the only local book stores are two Barnes and Noble's for the entire region. My best bet for selling the book would be to libraries, gas stations and used book stores, unfortunately.

The e-book thing would be a fun experiment, but isn't it nearly impossible to get a book published in print after you already made it into an e-book? Publishers aren't willing to do that, I thought. So I've been holding off on that worried about blowing my chances of one day seeing it in print.

That's no longer true. My book, War on the Margins, was self-published first. I marketed the living daylights out of it on British blogs (it takes place on the British Channel Islands) and it was picked up by a UK publisher. The book The Shack was originally self-published, too.

[khalleron]

It's nearly impossible to get *any* book published nowadays.

Having a successful ebook could actually help you get a publisher, but the keyword is 'successful'.