Order your
Book NOW!
(Design, Cost
Estimates,
Place Order)
• • • • •
See Samples
• • • • •
Ordering
from
our Library :
Online Library
Ordering your Book
About Sheridan
See Sample Books
What you need to know
Where do you start?
FAQ’s
E-mail Us
Correspondence
Home
SENDING
Diskettes?
Send only
ZIP, JAZ, CD,
or 3.5” Floppy.
SENDING
Manuscript?
Send only
Clean Copies,
NO Originals!
• • • • •
See Samples
• • • • •
Ordering
from
our Library :
Online Library
Ordering your Book
About Sheridan
See Sample Books
What you need to know
Where do you start?
FAQ’s
E-mail Us
Correspondence
Home
Order your
Book NOW!
(Design, Cost
Estimates,
Place Order)
SENDING
Diskettes?
Send only
ZIP, JAZ, CD,
or 3.5” Floppy.
SENDING
Manuscript?
Send only
Clean Copies,
NO Originals!
1. Where and how do I even start?
2. What kinds of family histories are there?
3. What makes Sheridan Publishing different from the other guys?
4. How long will it take for me to get a book printed?
5. How much will it cost for me to get a book printed?
6. How do I send my manuscript to Sheridan Publishing?
7. Is there a minimum order that I have to place?
9. How can I get help doing the research needed before I can begin writing?
10. I downloaded a whole bunch of information from the Internet. How good is it?
Answers
1. Where and how do I start writing a personal or family history?
While there are many approaches to creating a printed personal or family history, one popular model involves a 12-step process:
1. Interviewing (creating an oral history)
2. Historical research
3. Transcribing the oral histories
4. Word processing
5. Editing
6. Selecting and processing visuals (such as photographs) for printing
7. Selecting and preparing other mementos for printing
8. Preparing press-ready text (format, font, headings, captions, media--disk, CD, etc.)
9. Selecting the right kind of paper
10. Printing
11. Binding
12. Distributing the finished product Sheridan Publishing, the premiere printer of personal and family histories on the Internet, currently will assist you with steps 8-12. But keep your eyes on our web site as future plans are rolled out to further help with earlier steps in the process, as well as enhancements of our current services. For more information about this 12-step process, click on the following link:
2. What kinds of family histories are there?
There are probably nearly as many kinds of histories as there are families, but the major categories include various types of media (photos, journals, historical narrative, pedigree charts, home movies, digital media such as Cds, books, electronic books, web sites, and the like), as well as subjects (the descendants of Sir Arthur Dromedary, early citizens of St. Thomasville, romantic letters from the pen of Grandma McLeary, etc.). At Sheridan, our goal is to help you take whatever textual approach you have chosen so that you can bring it forward for others to enjoy and preserve for decades and centuries to come. Interesting prose, meaningful visuals, and informative pedigrees combine to tell a story that is part of who you are, as well as many relatives and friends of the family or community.
Our goal is to provide you with an avenue for printing your personal or family history at a cost that you can handle. As we looked around at the typical methods for publishing such histories, we saw that many individuals or small family organizations simply could not afford to print and thus preserve the stories and pictures that meant so very much to them. We want to change that. We believe that if you will do some comparative shopping, you will find what we did--most family histories cost between $50 and $200 just for the printing of each copy of your book! That is simply too much. And therein lies the difference between Sheridan and the other guys. Using modern print technology, we will reduce that cost by as much as 50% or more in many cases. Each member of the executive board of Sheridan Publishing grew up with two common elements in his life:
(1) an appreciation of the need to understand one's roots in order to better understand one's future, and
(2) humble living circumstances. We want to provide a service that our families can afford. If we can do that, we think your families will appreciate it as well.
Depending on how finished your pages are when you send them to us, the entire process will likely take between two weeks and ten weeks. Basically, once we have a signed-off approval from you as the author on the design and final content of your book, you should have printed and bound copies of your history delivered directly to your door within 10-14 days. Getting to that point will depend on the extent of other support services that you ask us to provide to help you feel good about your book. If you provide us with finished pages that require no proofreading or design work whatsoever, you will receive your books quite quickly. On the other hand, if you want us to help out a bit more, in general if your manuscript is about 250 pages long, you can figure on a week for proofreading, another week for building the pages, a few days for working through any visuals and pedigree charts that you provide, a week or so to create each index that you want us to create for you, and of course whatever time you require to review the finished book for your final approval.
(1) preparing the manuscript for printing, and
(2) printing and binding the book itself.
Often the costs associated with preparing the manuscript exceed the costs of actually printing the book. This is especially true with the printing technology used at Sheridan.To help you, we have constructed a calculator on our web site that will figure the costs you can expect for your project based on a series of options that you choose, including proofreading, design, indexing, composing the final pages, and various printing options (paperback or hardback, paper size, etc.).
1. If you design your book or have someone else design it for you, please make sure that it will fit a page size that we offer. You will need to send us a clean printout of that designed book.
2. If you want us to design your book, choose from the options found on our sample page and make a note of it for your ordering.
You will need only to fill out the order form completely so we know how to create your book.
You will need to send us your book in an electronic format according to the following instructions:
a. Word processing files must be in either Word or WordPerfect.
b. Tables created in your word processor will not transfer into our book production programs. Neither will lines, boxes, and other special design items.
c. Send the files on 3.5" floppy discs, Zip disks, Jaz disks, or CDs. Please do not send us your only files. Always make sure you keep a copy for yourself.
d. Photos are placed in a photo section rather than placed throughout the book. If your file contains both text and photos, the photos will be removed and saved as separate images for placement in the photo section.
e. Although we can place a color image on your book cover, only black-and-white images can be printed inside the book. If you send color images, they will be converted to grayscale images.
f. If you send us images to scan, please send copies only. We are not responsible for returning originals to you, nor can we guarantee that originals will not be damaged in our production process. Please keep all originals in a safe place and send only copies.
g. Photo files are prefered in a tiff format, but bitmap, gif, jpeg, or other standard format will be accepted.
Simply place an order through our online catalog for any book listed in that catalog, pay for your order with your credit card, and your requested books will be delivered to your door in two weeks or less. Whether you order 1 or 1,000 copies, the price per book will always be the same, as listed in the catalog, which is a significant difference between our printing strategies and that of traditional family history publishers.
9. How can I get help doing the research needed before I can begin writing?
Sheridan Publishing does not provide professional research assistance. However, we can recommend to you some websites that can be valuable resources, and we are also prepared to point you in the direction of extremely qualified professional genealogical research services. For more information, contact us at customerservice@sheridanpublishing.com
10. I downloaded a whole bunch of information from the Internet. How good is it?
The Internet has proven to be an incredibly rich resource of genealogical information in recent months, with new databases coming on line almost daily. However, research done on that information is only as good as the information itself. While most professional resources strive to very careful to preserve the integrity of their data, unfortunately many amateurs (and some "professionals") are not as careful. If you have concerns about the validity of information that you have obtained from the Internet or elsewhere, we advise that you either consult with an expert in your particular area of genealogical research and that you verify as many of the facts as possible through another source, if possible. Sheridan Publishing will not evaluate the accuracy of your research, nor can we be held liable for it. We can recommend to you an independent resource for performing such an evaluation. For more information, contact us at customerservice@sheridanpublishing.com
Order your Book | About Sheridan | See Sample Books | What you need to know
Where do you start? | FAQ’s | E-mail Us | Correspondence | Hom
Last Update: Friday, October 26, 2001 4:47 PM
