When is a good time to publish your memoirs?

When is a good time to publish your memoirs? -  A few years back President Bill Clinton made one of the few statements that I agreed with over his eight year term as President and that was that anyone over the age of 50 owed it to his family to record their life experiences and pass it on to the next generation.   September is a great time to get started. (Click here to read more)

This year was a big year for me. Last month, I officially outlived my father.  Early this month, I took my baby off to college, making my wife and I officially “empty-nesters”. Both of my grandkids turned one, my mom turned 86 and I’m headed off to my 40^th high school reunion.  Wow…. Where did the time go? In a conversation the other day with my older sister, we decided that we were the “youngsters” of old age.  In listening to all the talk of the “post-war baby boom” over the past 58 years, there are quite a few of us “youngsters” out there, all with stories to tell.

My dad passed away back when the IBM Selectic typewriter was a big deal.  I remember lots of dinner table stories growing up about his life during the depression and WW2.  Unfortunately, he didn’t write any of these stories down.  Did he walk 10 miles through 3 feet of snow or 3 miles through 10 feet of snow to get to school?  Without anything written, no one will ever know… for sure.  Sure, I can write about those stories but nothing beats firsthand knowledge.

I’m a bit of a history buff and among my collection is a series of Civil War books published in 1898.  All the articles/chapters were written by soldiers and sailors who actually fought in the war.  What a striking difference between this and some of the revisionist history books writing about the same events today.  Your observations of the first landing on the moon or the day Kennedy was shot are your observations.  If you talk to the average person they would tell you that they have led fairly boring lives but what if you were able to open a book written by your grandfather, who passed years ago, and learn, first hand, what it was like in the trenches of WW1 or sailing to America on a square rigger or packed into an old steamship.

I don’t have any steamship stories but I’m sure my grandson or great granddaughter would find something interesting about my life, well after I’m gone.  But the only way they are going to read about it is for me to write it.   I write little snipets of my life in my various articles but if I were to leave this earth today, a whole lot of really neat stories would go with me.   I have decided to try to not let this happen but I need help.  I’m guilty of putting things off as much as anyone. Much the way that weight watchers or AA works, I am asking a group of you to join me in writing our memoirs.  We’ll set a publication date of December 1, 2010 for the publication of these memoirs.  If possible I would like to have 25 or so of you join me. We will set up a schedule that will help us meet the 2010 goal. I think it will be fun. We can get together on a conference call once a week or so and discuss ideas, problems and progress.  Depending where everyone lives, maybe we can even get together in person… Book Expo in New York next spring would be a good idea.  If you are interested in joining me, write to me at ron@selfpublishing.com and let me know.

Unlike most of the publishing topics I write about, I’m not talking about anyone starting a publishing company or trying to market these books when we’re done.  It is intended that they will be our contribution to our friends and families…. to history.

You can be any age, although I like the “over 50” idea.  We all were around when a man walked on the moon. We were all affected by the Vietnam War, either directly or indirectly. We all lived through Jimmy Carter with his 21% CDs and Swine Flu one, when the vaccine killed more people than the flu.  We witnessed one president being assassinated and the attempted assassination of another.  We all saw the Federal budget hit 100 billion for the first time, with 52 billion of that going to the war in Vietnam.  Almost all of our parents grew up in the depression. Most of us shared a phone line with a neighbor, went to the movies in the summer for the air conditioning and when cable TV was for farmers.  No matter how routine and uninteresting you may think your life has been, so far…. It’s really much more interesting than you may thing.  Certainly your kids, grandkids, or great grandkids or great great grandkids will certainly be interested in what you have to say.  When is a good time to get started?  Right now, today.   Once you’ve made up your mind that you’re ready to get started… let me know at ron@selfpublishing.com.

Meanwhile, if you have already written your memoirs, let the folks at SelfPublishing.com help you get to print.  We have a publishing program for pretty much every budget.

Ron Pramschufer

Ron Pramschufer has been in or around the printing and publishing industry for over 35 years. His experience, including working in the pressroom, bindery, production office and estimating department helped give him a firm foundation to build on when he entered sales and management. He was partners in a small press publishing company in Annapolis, MD in the late seventies and co-invented and marketed two controversial political board games which sold over 100,000 copies in the early eighties. Moving from his home state of Maryland to New York City after his game experience, Ron sold printing services to, primarily, small to mid-sized book publishers for over a decade before founding RJ Communications with an old friend. Ron recognized the potential of the Internet very early as a powerful communications tool. In 1997 he started one of the first printer related websites, www.rjcom.com, which caters to the professional print buyer. This evolved into www.BooksJustBooks.com and more recently www.selfpublishing.com which target the print buying novice, primarily self-publishers. All three sites are still operating successfully and SelfPublishing.com was named as one of Writers Digest’s, 101 Best websites for writers for 2006. Educating the novice print buyer has been a top priority from day one. To help address this issue, Ron co-authored the popular title Publishing Basics- a Guide for the Small Press and Independent Self-Publisher, now in its Third Edition, as well as Publishing Basics for Children’s Books, in its Second Edition. He is the organizer of the monthly Publishing Basics Newsletter where he writes a sometimes controversial Ask Ron column which addresses various aspects of the publishing process. On the same note, he started the Publishing Basics Radio PodCast in 2005 and serves as the show’s host. A wide variety of topics are covered including a very popular series titled, The Truth Behind POD Publishing, where he conducts interviews with a select group of industry insiders. Since its inception, RJ Communications has helped thousands of customers print over 105 million books. Ron is married and has three children. His daughter, Stephanie, teaches second grade and recently self-published her first children’s book in the Oliver the Clownfish series. Matthew, his oldest son, owns a website design business and Erik, the youngest, is enjoying high school.

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