Re: OT? Printing a Book

["Jane Bergen" <jane -dot- bergen -at- usa -dot- net>]

Hi, Carol,

You have a lot of variables that you haven't included: how many pages?
what page size? how many graphics? what kind of graphics? and so
on.... All those questions have to be answered first, before you can
determine your authoring tool.

If you have 200+ pages, I would choose something other than Word.
If you are going to print on a page size other than 8.5 x 11inches,
I'd choose something other than Word.
If you want a lot of razzle dazzle graphics, consider PageMaker,
but...drum roll, please...PageMaker's use of cross-references,
footnotes, etc. are really cumbersome. Weigh this factor carefully.

Probably overall, FrameMaker would be your best choice. It's a little
more third-party-publisher friendly than Word, yet easier to use for
long documents than Pagemaker. It's harder to use for graphics, but
still gives you more precise control than Word.

Most of the fund-raising type cookbooks are published by a handful of
specialty publishers in the midwest (notably Kansas) and they don't do
much else. Instead, I'd look at some genealogy magazines for ads from
companies that publish family history books. That's a little closer to
what you need. There are also lots of wonderful books available on the
subject. If you're interested in some genealogy web sites, let me
know. I have a few tons of them!

Hope that helps. It sounds like a fun project.

Janie Bergen (who is extremely envious that you live in Minnesota!)


----- Original Message -----
From: "Carol Anne Wall" <mmpc0014 -at- pclink -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Sent: Tuesday, July 25, 2000 9:42 AM
Subject: OT? Printing a Book


> I've volunteered to write a 25 year history of the adoption agency
we used
> recently to adopt our daughter.  I've met with the agency director
and we
> have set a scope, format (softcover), rough timeline, and have an
outline.
> Now I need to find out what it will cost to get the book printed.
I've
> never done this before (my employer doesn't publish its
documentation), and
> neither has the director.
>
> I will be contacting the writer who wrote a history of a local
church to
> pick her brain.  After talking to her, I plan to call her publisher
plus
> any other local print houses I can find listed in the miriad of
church
> cookbooks I find sitting on our kitchen shelf.  (my husband:  cook,
> cookbook collector)
>
> Has anyone out there done this before?  Any tips, tricks, pitfalls
to
> avoid?  Will I most likely need to write or transfer the project
into Frame
> or Pagemaker (the agency has a copy of Pagemaker)?  Or will Word
alone work?
>

> Thank you ever so much for your advice!
>
> Carol Anne
> Carol Anne Wall, FLMI, CTM
> Technical Writer, Minnesota Life Ins. Co. - Individual Business
Technology
> St. Paul, MN  USA
> mmpc0014 -at- pclink -dot- com