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If you want to write and publish a book about your life, or part of your life, you will need to follow some simple steps: 1. Writing the story – or telling the story verbally. 2. Manuscript assessment or structural edit then self-editing. 3. Tagging images. 4. Copy editing. 5. Designing your self-published book. 6. Printing and/or epublishing.

Note that most editors, designers and printers with whom you will need to engage to produce a self-published book can work with you entirely online.

1. Writing the story – or telling it

First you need to write your story down. Or, if writing is not your thing, you can tell your story to a scribe, or into a recorder, and get it typed up. The result will be a draft manuscript of your typed story.

You can tell your stories in order you like, although if you have told them in any old order, you should afterwards move the different stories into chronological order, as this is going to make the next stage easier for you and your editor.

If you are a story teller – a talker – rather than a writer, that is fine. You can hire a scribe to type as you speak. Or you can hire a life stories coach or life stories writer to ask you questions and record or type your stories. Any recordings can be either converted to text via voice-to-text or a human transcriptionist can type them into accurate transcripts. Call us if you need any help with this.

Before taking your manuscript to an editor we recommend self-editing your story to make corrections, add detail, clarify or put it into the right order. Theoretically, the better shape you can get your story into before taking it to an editor, the less it will cost you to have it edited.

2. Manuscript assessment or structural editing, and self-editing

Before beginning this next step you will need to be sure who the audience is – who do you intend to read your life story or memoir? Friends and family only, or the general public? Do you want it to be available for purchase online?

Anyone who writes their story down for the first time, or tells their life stories, for a book that they want strangers to read is going to miss some details that the reader is going to need to know. They are going to say some things in their book that the reader will find confusing because they don’t know the background of the storyteller. They are going to assume the reader understands them, when the reader may not. They are not going to realise how to make their story so engaging that the audience will read it to the end.

Once the content has been written and self-edited by the writer, it’s important to hand the manuscript over to an editor or life story writer to do a manuscript assessment, or structural edit (also called a developmental edit).

The editor will point out to the writer what needs further explanation or clarification, what needs to be expanded on by the storyteller, and anything that may pose a risk such as potential defamation issues, breach of copyright or offensive language risk. The editor will review the structure of the memoir or life story and suggest any changes required to make sure the content is presented in the best way for the particular story being published and the audience. The editor may suggest moving parts of the story to another place, changing the overall structure, changing the tense, or minor changes.

Then, either the writer will address those issues within the manuscript; or, if the client wants the editor  or life story writer to make those improvements to the manuscript, they can collaborate with the editor or life stories writer to do this.

Once all those issues have been addressed the content will be finished and the manuscript ready for copy editing, except for the tagging stage, as follows.

3. Tagging images in the manuscript

If you don’t intend to include any images in your book, you can skip this step.

But if you want to include any images or photos in your story, they will need to be “tagged” in the manuscript, and a caption written for each one, and this needs to happen prior to the copy editing stage.

For instructions on how to tag the images, go to Tagging.

4. Copy editing the manuscript

An editor who has not yet seen the manuscript is the best person to do the copy edit because they will be able to edit it with “fresh eyes”. To find out what happens during the copy editing stage, see: Rough copy edit, and Final copy edit.

Once the final copy edit has been done, the manuscript is ready for design.

5. Designing your self-published book

If you want to self-publish a professional-looking book, you will need to get a designer to design it for you. They will collaborate with you to do the layout  or typesetting of the inside pages, including any images you want to include, and design the cover, all as per the specifications of the printer or epublisher.

To know what to expect at the design stage, go to: The design stage.

Most authors who want to publish their memoir self-publish. That is, they:

• hire a self-publishing services provider (like us) to produce their book for them and self-publish it under the author’s name, or
• produce the book themselves, which means they hire a typsetter or designer to design the book, seek quotes from printers and hire a printer, and coordinate the publishing of their book under the author’s name.

See point 7. below for more information about this end-stage of producing your book.

6. Self-publishing vs using a “publisher”

Traditionally a “publisher” is a company that accepts certain manuscripts that they agree to publish, where the publisher pays for all costs of production and distribution and then pays the author a small royalty for each book sold. Once the author has handed over the manuscript to the publisher, the author does not pay anything towards the editing, design or printing of the book.

However, nowadays there are not only traditional publishers but also “hybrid publishers” where the author is required to pay the publisher at least part of the cost, and sometimes all of the cost, of producing the book.

Authors be warned: be careful when browsing the internet for a “publisher”. You will see numerous so-called “publishers” but not all will be legitimate and some will be companies known to be unethical. We suggest you read this article to help you avoid being ripped off: Comparing different types of publishers/publishing.

7. Printing or epublishing

If you have no experience in self-publishing you may find it easier to ask an experienced self-publishing services provider to manage this end-stage of working with the designer and printer to finalise the printing and/or epublishing of your book.

If you want to epublish your book, make sure your designer has designed books for epublishing previously, so they can guide you through the steps and, if you want, show you how to do it yourself next time.

If you want to manage the printing of your self-published book yourself, you will need to become familiar with terms such as GSM (thickness of paper), specifications, dimensions, spine width, and the terms for different types of paper and paper finishes. Some self-publishing services providers – like us – teach you how to do it while doing it for and with you, so that you can do it yourself next time. Some printers are also helpful when it comes to teaching you about the printing stage.

If you’d like some free advice about self-publishing (either in print or an ebook), you are welcome to contact us here.