Our Process
The Lifetime Book Process
Customized for you and your story
Your Lifetime Writer helps you cull the best of your lifetime stories to fit the limitation of the book size you have selected.
Your Lifetime Writer:
Our Process
The 4 P's: PURPOSE—PROBING—PRIORITY—PROGRESS
Plan
I listen and help you plan.
Your Lifetime Writer helps you plan your book from start to finish, listens to your stories and records each interview. You create a preliminary Chapter Outline that will evolve and change after each interview.
Write
I record and help you write your stories.
Your Lifetime Writer helps and advises as you write drafts of each chapter from notes and recordings made during interviews with you and your designated sources, and review your drafts.
Revise
I help you revise and improve.
Your Lifetime Writer helps you revise each chapter of the book until you are satisfied with the layout of each page and chapter, the quality of the writing, and all of the details contained within your book.
Publish
I help you self-publish your book!
Your Lifetime Writer helps you design your front and back cover with photos and text, and when you have approved all, I help you publish your book using the best self-publishing program online.
Your Lifetime Book Interview
The process begins with an initial interview.
Agreement
terms and conditions
- The Lifetime Writer Agreement: Your writer will ask you to sign an Agreement that includes our terms and conditions, including payment terms, your rights guarantee and a content disclaimer. Please read it carefully before you sign.
- Read Agreement
Purpose
Why are you writing this book?
- We will discuss your purpose and intention in writing your Lifetime Book. Some write to remember, some write to review lessons learned. There are as many reasons to write a Lifetime Book as their are authors.
Theme
What is the tone or feeling you wish to convey?
- We will discuss your “theme” or a special tone or feeling you would like the book to convey. Some authors are sentimental, some are logical, others are historical.
Outline
We will develop a table of contents.
- Together, we will brainstorm a list of possible book titles and develop an initial “Content Outline” including Chapters and Chapter Titles.
Elements
Dedication, Preface, Introduction, more.
- We will plan any additional book elements, for example a Preface or Forward, Dedication, Introduction, Acknowledgements, Appendix and more.
Schedule
Interviews, milestones, draft reviews.
- We will create a schedule, planning milestones, additional interviews to obtain details about the events of your lifetime that you would like to include in the book, and draft reviews.
Review
The Self-Publishing Process
- Your Lifetime Writer will also review the publishing process with you and make note of your preferences for a cover design, and details about how the book will be published and made available for purchase.
Additional Considerations
Page Design
Your photos and images
Your Lifetime Writer will suggest a variety of page designs including the placement of photos. We will help you collect all of the photos you would like to include in your Lifetime book and advise you as to sources for free and licensed images to use.
We will scan your print photos if necessary and re-size and re-format your photos to fit the layout of the page on which they appear.
Your Lifetime Writer will work with you to determine the best method for receiving the essence of your stories: you may record them on tape, tell your stories through interview, write them in email or letter form, whatever method is easier for you.
For those with some technical expertise, we can set up a “file sharing” service in which you can create shared “folders” for uploading photos and text to easily share these with your Lifetime Writer. Your writer will show you how it’s done.
Publishing
and your rights
You retain all of the rights to your book. You reserve the right to copy or distribute your Lifetime Book. The copyright will be in your name and you will be the author of the book.
Your Lifetime Writer publishes your book using the best online self-publishing and printing services that meet the needs of your book layout, size and quality requirements.
I will show you how to create your own online self-publishing account to sell/distribute your book.
Read and review our Publishing Agreement.