Not Another Autobiography, Please.

Bluebelle wrote ... I m sure it must cost a lot to self publish

Not necessarily these days.

It depends upon how much of the work one can do oneself.

If one produces PDF (Portable Document Format) documents, and that can be done on a home computer using budget-priced software, and so one just pays for those electronic files to be printed and bound to produce hardcopy books. I found, upon checking before writing this post, that about ten hardback books of 60 sides of printing is under £100. A one-off book was just over £20.

I checked using the Quick Quote facility on

viking-virtualprinthouse.co.uk/

They do hardback and softback.

Do you know about Legal Deposit?

www.bl.uk/legal-deposit

If one publishes a book, a copy needs to be sent to the British Library and five other libraries can claim a copy.

The law phrases it as an obligation on the publisher, but it is a great opportunity as the British Library will conserve the copy at no cost to the publisher and include it in their catalogue and make it available in their reading room.

Someone decided to declare paying to get one's work published as vanity publishing, but that is a pejorative term.

Some people are against someone paying to get their work published, and there are expensive offers to be careful to avoid, but it does seem strange that if someone spends a lot of money going on holiday somewhere that is seen by some as reasonable but if one spends money on having the enjoyment of publishing one's writing that is seen by some as a wrong thing to do.

The important thing to remember is to be the publisher oneself (there is a popular myth that a publisher must be a business - it is not true) not pay a business to be the publisher. That way one keeps all of the intellectual property rights oneself.

Also, please know that one can also publish in pure electronic form. The British Library also collects pure electronic publications, provided they are being made available to the public, not necessarily being sold.

I was wondering if publication on the intenet could be by uploading a PDF document to a Gransnet thread. It looks like it is just images, but I'll ask.

Yes you could Chestnut. Without sounding like 'poor me' my school life was almost as bad as my home life. Not quite obviously but Catholic nuns etc. I'm sure you get the picture. I have my Beatle days but I have bored everyone silly with that already!
There doesn't seem to be any celebrity who hasn't written their autobiography or a childrens book. Some of these people are only in their 20s.

Well, I kind of wish my mum and dad had written a book about their lives for me and my daughter to read now, how they lived through (and in my dad's case fought in) the war. How my mum was one of 7 children, and all the sometimes sad and sometimes very funny stories about them when they were children. And stuff about their own parents, of whom I know very little really and wish I'd asked about more. (They all died before I was born or when I was too young to remember.) But my own life seems a lot more humdrum and much less interesting. And writing about it would take up way too much time.

my grandfather sat down at the age of 90 and recorded his life story on cassette tape.
when he died in my uncle found the tape and copied it for my parents. i copied the tape for myself and then my brother transferred it to cd with enough copies for all the family.
it was very interested and i once thought about transcribing it to my computer. i haven't done it yet but might one day.

It's like attending amateur theatricals, music recitals or art exhibitions, isn't it! Often painful, sometimes pleasant, occasionally you find a gem. Grin and bear it!

Yes, self-publishing on Kindle - as paper book and/or eBook - is risk-free with no up-front costs, though your share of the sales price is not huge. It's all changed a lot in the last few years.

It is the reminiscences of ordinary people that give the greatest historical value to future generations

I have had a very unusual life story. Hollywood would love it. Hollywood aren't getting it.

Think Catherine Cookson and Victoria Holte style books spanning a few generations and the sins of our forefathers.

I have written my memoirs and had it printed up in a book. That's it. It's for privacy and so my adult children can one day read if they wish to get the overall story, they are part of.

It will go no further. Our life story is not for others titillation. Also the story is very outing and we live in a small world.

I did it for cathartic reasons to get my own sense of it after years of very intense different types of of therapy

Coco51

It is the reminiscences of ordinary people that give the greatest historical value to future generations

I have a booklet written by one of DH's relatives; that part of the family moved to Canada and their story is very interesting and they were also featured in the press at the time, about 100 years ago.
However, we knew nothing of it until I started researching family history and found it online as the BBC had researched a relative for WDYTYA but it was never televised, unfortunately.

Chestnut I agree the 3 books of Nella Last’s diaries are fascinating and absolutely riveting. Just an ordinary housewife leading an ordinary life but her writing is totally engrossing.

Chestnut

Dickens An example - "Nella Last's War" - 'The Second World War Diaries of 'Housewife, 49'. An obscure, ordinary housewife... I couldn't put the book down and devoured every last detail.
This was made into a TV drama with Victoria Wood as Nella Last called Housewife 49. I felt it was such an important snapshot of life during the war that I bought it on DVD for my collection. It's the only time I've seen her acting a serious part and she was excellent.

Yes, I remember that and it was excellent.

Dickens - Thank you for mentioning Nella Last's books. I have just been on Amazon and bought them for my Kindle. I look forward to reading all her books again. I read them a while ago but lent them to someone who didn't give them back! I also have Housewife 49 on dvd and rewatch it from time to time - I always feel so angry with her sister-in-law who is so unkind to her

Sorry to OP, but I enjoy books written by friends. Most cost less than two gin and tonics and we’d buy a round when out with a friend?
Some of the ‘official’ memoirs and autobiographies are awful. Rather pay for a friends version.
Sorry people.

At the turn of the millennium there were a lot of oral history projects going on to record the lives of "ordinary" people. I use inverted commas as everyone's life is unique and has a story to tell. Snippets of those oral histores have been added to talking benches which you may have in your area. Or they may have been filed away for family historians of the future to find. How I would love to be able to hear my grandparents, great grandparents and beyond tell me firsthand about their lives.

The most exciting thing I have is a written potted biography of my gggg grandmother's sister. She was a ringleader in the 1816 East Anglian "Bread or Blood" riots. She was tried, found guilty and sentenced to death but commuted to transportation for life to Van Dieman's Land. On route, the ship of women convicts was boarded off the coast of Madeira by South American pirates! The ship did make it to VDM via Sydney where my ancestor's sister became rather notorious. There is even a song about her. A women's collective in VDM now Tasmania has set out to trace the lives of the over 12,000 women who were transported to VDM. But for their work, writing the lives of "ordinary" people. I would not know this story of my family member's part in early 19C political protest. Although she was deemed a troublemaker, I am rather proud of her for making a stand about we now call food poverty.

It was through my son that I wrote about my 1940's years because I was recuperating after breaking my right hip and left arm. I was sent home after 9 weeks in the hospital but I could not stand at the time or balance myself because of the injuries and my arm had to be re-set and was still in plaster. When my son came one day he asked me how I was and I said I was bored silly because I could not knit or hold a book to read and was beginning to feel absolutely useless. He said to me "Mother I have taught you how to use a computer so get cracking on writing about the life you had during the war years for any future ancestors and for Tami (my granddaughter) because you can still use your right hand"

It did not cost me anything to publish but that was probably because the chap himself was interested in WW2. It was him who got the ball rolling because originally it was just for my family.

I was staggered when I had a call from the BBC asking me if they could interview me about the book .

I am still getting requests from many folk asking me for tales that happened over the last 9 decades because they call it living history.
I have had poetry books published and the proceeds from them too have all gone to charity.
I can only write what I have witnessed in life either through my tales or experiences I would be no good at writing fiction.
It is NOT a glossy faced small book because originally it was just for my family.

It helped me in many ways to finally get the sadness and aggressiveness out of my system and I personally think with today's technology everyone can leave written memories for their future family ancestors.

www.reprintuk.com/books/yesterdays_child_world_war_two

Oh dear. I had a friend ask me to read his ‘novel’ . It was just awful. It was badly written and all I could hear was this chaps voice every time the hero ( obviously) spouted drivel.?? I said I was too close to be objective . Phew . It did not get published .

First: you are not obliged to buy a book just because you know the author. If these friends ask if you have read their books, just say kindly that you are waiting for them to be available through the public library as your budget unfortunately does not allow you to buy books.

If they then lend you a copy, dip into it, so you can return it with many thanks and a few comments after a suitable length of time.

I enjoy autobiographies about "ordinary " people who live ordinary lives, so I would be happy to read the books but tastes differ.

If you really don't want to read these books, make failing eyesight your excuse, or that you have little time for reading, or that with a war going on in the Ukraine, you just cannot cope with a book about the First World War.

CaravanSerai How I would love to be able to hear my grandparents, great grandparents and beyond tell me firsthand about their lives.
Oh me toooo! I have studied all their lives in detail and written them all up as stories, so I feel very close to some of them as if I know them. But I have no first hand knowledge. I often wonder about their actual experiences and their personalities. I do have about 50 letters written by a great aunt in the 1940s and they are amazing!

PS: I'm curious about your name. Does it have anything to do with a song by Loreena McKennitt?

I had a rather upsetting life, with a few good bits in between. So I wouldnt want to upset my daughters, grandkids with it. Why would anyone want to do that, it's just passing on the pain.

Although an only child I have (had) a huge family with so many aunts, uncles and cousins, and have created a folder with photos of them all, and a page of notes about each. However, this is just for my children, should they ever be interested enough to read it, but I cannot imagine anyone wanting to publish it. I did this because so often people say that they wish they had asked their aunts, grandparents etc. about 'the old days', and when they are all dead it is too late.

I wish I had sat down with my nan and listened to her talk about her life. I have gleaned a little from mum and other relatives but it's not the same. She was one of eight and when her mother died, her father remarried and had another ten children. Her stepmother had no time for the first family and they were put into service. Nan worked for a Jewish family as a cook and many of our family recipes came from there. My dad was orphaned at four and had very few memories of his birth parents. He recalled some stories of his foster family before he died but again so much was missing. I wonder if my interest is piqued the older I get.

Coco51

It is the reminiscences of ordinary people that give the greatest historical value to future generations

Yes. For example, 1800s. We know about Trafalgar and Waterloo. But precisely what did an ordinary person at home eat two hundred years ago today?

No Chestnut. It's the title of a 1972 album by Santana - a band whose music I loved in my teenage years and still listen to 50 years later.

Chestnut

Dickens An example - "Nella Last's War" - 'The Second World War Diaries of 'Housewife, 49'. An obscure, ordinary housewife... I couldn't put the book down and devoured every last detail.
This was made into a TV drama with Victoria Wood as Nella Last called Housewife 49. I felt it was such an important snapshot of life during the war that I bought it on DVD for my collection. It's the only time I've seen her acting a serious part and she was excellent.

I agree - I watched it too,

The acting was superb... not least by Stephanie Cole!

Another fan of the Nella books and drama. Cole is great in those imperious but with a soft side roles c/f her recent appearance in Gentleman Jack.

There's a line in Housewife, 49 that has always stayed with me. It's on the beach when Nella is talking to her son and he says: I may loom large in your life, Mother but you do not loom large in mine. It seemed such a cruel thing to say when she was feeling so low although he was probably just stating a fact - that he was busy with his own life. But it always comes back to me when I read threads here about mothers who feel they have been sidelined in their adult children's lives.

CaravanSerai

No Chestnut. It's the title of a 1972 album by Santana - a band whose music I loved in my teenage years and still listen to 50 years later.

Oh wow. It's also a very romantic and beautiful song on Loreena McKennitt's album An Ancient Muse. Only discovered her a few years ago but I love her songs and have bought a few albums.
Caravanserai