May 2020 - Forever Young Autobiographies

Book layout: Don’t start a book layout without these 7 book-design tips!

Amazing book page layout help about fonts, chapters, running heads and MORE!

Ever get the feeling you are opening a can of worms?

I sure do when I check my young bug-loving son’s pant pockets to put on a load of laundry.

What will I find: a ‘fossil’ rock, a dead caterpillar, a fistful of sand?

Likewise, you might feel you have opened a ‘book layout’ can of worms when you get to the polishing stage of your life-story project.

This is because book layout and design terms can seem like another language!

I recently went through the book layout process for my grandmother’s autobiography.

So today I’m breaking down the key terms in plain English for newbie writers.

Keep reading for my top book-layout tips and secret book-design weapon …

Case study: Secrets to writing my 100yo grandmother’s autobiography

Part 3: What every aspiring life-story writer ought to know about telling family stories

“It’s beautiful” my grandmother Bonnie, 99, said through tears as she took the first look at her printed autobiography book.

“We did it together,” she said hugging me.

My family and I were visiting Bonnie earlier this year in a nursing home and were excited to finally give her a reader’s copy of her life story.

She was soon flipping to a photo of her younger self with long plaits to show my daughter, 7, as her doctor and a nurse popped by.

“Isn’t that amazing! I’m so glad you did this,” Bonnie’s long-time doctor said shaking his head incrediously.

It had taken my grandmother and me four years of planning, writing, polishing and publishing to get to this point.

There had been some serious ups and downs along the way but the writing had been worth it.

This is the third and final article about Bonnie’s life-story project (see articles part one and part two here!).

So keep reading to find out how we went from final draft to finished autobiography book in time for her 100th birthday this month during a global pandemic.

Ask Nicola Q&A: How to take the headache out of high-resolution images

The easy way to image resize and save high-resolution photos. NOW!

Hello and welcome to Forever Young Autobiographies – Ask Nicola.

As a journalist and writing coach I’m asked lots of questions about planning, writing, polishing and publishing life stories for family and friends.

And in this series I give you a behind-the-scenes look at how I help new writers just like you!

This week’s Ask Nicola answers the following question:

Help! I am getting my book printed and have been told the JPEG pictures are not good enough quality. What does this mean? How to fix?

Case study: Nurse’s memoir like stepping into Call The Midwife episode

How London’s Swinging Sixties inspired nurse Eira Bish’s IngramSpark publication

For retired nurse Eira Battaglia (nee Bish) writing her memoir The Silver Buckle was a natural extension of reminiscing about her student days.

Her 50 years of nursing started at South London’s St Giles’ Hospital during the momentous Swinging Sixties and included working in England, Canada and Australia.

Eira also trained nurses for 30 years and said today’s students were fascinated by her tales of an earlier era of nursing.

“I consider I have had a rich, wonderful career that my three years as a trainee in the 1960s was able to allow me to do so many things,” she said.

In this week’s case study, Eira shares more about her self-published book, the steps she took to have it published plus tips for new writers looking to do the same…