Keeping A Story Alive
In December of 2010, I finished uploading my grandma's memoir to a self-publishing site and released it to be sold on Amazon. I had started working on her manuscript around 1994, taking it from her longhand to a word processing program. I'm pretty sure it was Word 3.1, or something like that. Thankfully, I knew enough about saving digital work then to save it in a format that would be compatible to different programs if need be. I completed transferring the manuscript in 1997, printed out all 200+ pages, took it to a copy store, and had several spiral bound copies made to present to my grandma. Her delight in having her book in hand was the only payment I needed. Her happiness made me happy. In 2006, I came across a self-publishing site and decided to take Grandma's book and turn it into a "real" book, a paperback with a "real" cover and its own ISBN. At the time, I didn't have the skills to create a cover, and after several failed attempts, the bo...