From Blog to Book: Considering the Possibilities

Here I sit, a blogger currently having just crossed the 1,600 mark, wondering what to do to preserve those posts at A Family Tapestry in a more permanent form. After all, this nearly four year and five month process has terribly inconvenienced a large number of electrons. It's time to add some felled trees in the making of this message.

In particular, I'd like to return to the story of my father-in-law, the seventeen year old Irish-American Chicagoan who couldn't get into the Navy fast enough after that unforgettable day in December, 1941. Embedded within those sixteen hundred posts, it's a story that gets lost in the forest of words.

I've been inspired by the reports of other bloggers who have done just that: convert their blog posts into book form.

I thought the posts by Jana Last were informative and beneficial, explaining why she opted to go with a company known simply as Blurb.com. She has already shared two posts, giving her analysis of her decision process and showing the resultant product. She's promised a third post on the subject, which she is planning to share after completion of another book project.

Of course, I wanted to know everything about it, so I was hungry to find more. In addition to visiting the company's own website, I kept an eye out for other genea-bloggers posting on the subject. As it turned out, Heather Rojo of Nutfield Genealogy had posted on that very subject only three weeks before Jana had. In her case, she compared her experience with two companies: Blurb.com and Blog2Book.

There were other resources. Only ten days before that, another blogger had weighed in on the process. This time, it was John Tew of Filiopietism Prism, who posted pictures and a critique of his experience at Blurb.

That wasn't all. This meme-by-installment-plan had an even earlier entry, courtesy of Lynn Palermo, who went so far as to do a price comparison between three companies back in 2014.

There were more, of course, who discussed the topic as well, but I think you get the idea. Just like asking for restaurant recommendations, it's better to glean as many opinions as possible on this—one never knows when another's personal taste will be to your liking. I'm thankful for the input from the genealogy blogging community. The reasons provided for each writer's personal preferences helped me determine what I would be most likely to choose, given the description of parameters.

So now, it's my turn: time to spring for it and make that printed collection of family stories. And of course, I'm languishing in the grip of analysis paralysis. I have to know every detail. I research things to death. But if I'm going to convert these good intentions into viable Christmas gifts, now would be a good time to get busy.