First of all, congratulations on writing your story!
No doubt it’s been a big job, but hopefully one that you’ve enjoyed doing. But what do you do with it now?
Maybe, you have written your story as a personal, private project – a looking back over your life for yourself. If you don’t want to share your story with anyone, you don’t have to! There might be many reasons that you want to keep it to yourself. You might like to gift it to a family member or someone else close to you, but after you have gone. Make sure you specify in your will what should happen to it, so that your wishes are honoured. It may even be that you request it to be destroyed rather than passed on to someone.
If you are ready to share your story with others, have a think about how you’d like to best do that. You have a number of options:
- If you have hand-written your story, it could remain as you have written it. You could get it bound if the pages are loose, or, if you have written in a journal, maybe you will gift it to one special person, or pass it on through your family members.You may have someone in your family who could transpose it for you into a digital file so that you can take any of the options above. There are also text recognition apps/software available that can scan your hand-written pages and turn them into usable digital files. It is recommended that you carefully proofread what is created, as errors can slip in during this process. If you are wanting to include photos in your book, you will need to get them scanned at a copy centre so that they exist as digital images. This gives you a backup of your precious photos in case anything ever happens to the physical versions.
- If you have used a program like Microsoft Word to write your story, you could save this as is and email it to those you want to share it with. Be aware that Word files can be edited, added to, copied etc. And if you have used any fancy fonts in your layout, it may look much different when someone else views it on their computer! If you can, save your document as a PDF file, to retain your layout. If you have included lots of photos, this can also make the file size very large, possibly larger than email size limits might allow.
- You could take your file to a local print shop and ask them to print it out for you. Many places also offer binding, so you could get a couple of copies printed and bound. Taking a PDF file, rather than your Word file to the shop would be advisable in this case.
Want something extra special?
If you would like to turn your story into a beautiful book that will make a special and attractive gift for your loved ones, Living Narratives has a wealth of experience when it comes to cover design, page layout and printing options. We take your words, and treat them with respect, designing the layout and format of your book; including you in the process, to ensure we are presenting your story in a way that honours who you are.
Once we have designed your book, you will receive a digital PDF version, and we will arrange printing, so that you end up with multiple copies of your stunning book, ready to share or gift to others. Your books will be delivered to you, but not before we check them personally first, to make sure they meet our high standards.
We’ll lovingly wrap and package your books with a few little touches, like the cute stickers from StickerDot you see in the photo below. (Note: if you’d like your own personalised stickers created for you, so you can use them in your gift wrapping, we can arrange that for you too. StickerDot have a range of sticker sizes, shapes and sizes, so you can put your own unique touch to your gift-giving!).
Whatever path you choose to take, you’ve done something that could have a lasting impact – you’ve written your story, and if you choose to share it, you are writing history with you in it. Future generations will be blessed!