Tag Archives: Resources

Monday’s Link Roundup.

Posted on April 15, 2013 | Leave a comment

Monday's Link Roundup

In this Monday’s Link roundup I recommend taking a look at Lost Cat: An Illustrated Meditation on Love, Loss, and What It Means To Be Human. I love cats and can’t wait to read this unique memoir. With the arrival of Spring on the West Coast, I’m valiantly trying to throw stuff out. That’s why I thought How to Speed Up, Clean Up, and Revive Your Windows PC seemed the perfect How to. 

  • Massive Volunteer Collective Proofreads 25,000 Public-Domain Books. “Give these people a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records, because they surely deserve one: As of today, 100,000 people around the world have taken part in a massive proofreading project to correct the electronic texts of 25,000 publicly available books on the Project Gutenberg site.”
  • The Key to Getting Motivated: Give Up. “…trying to “get motivated” can often make matters worse. The real problem isn’t that you don’t feel like taking action. Rather, it’s the underlying assumption that you need to feel like taking action before you can act. Which explains the hidden pitfall of most “motivational” advice: it’s not about how to get things done, but about how to get in the mood for getting things done.”
  • The rise of the virtual bookshelf. “Enjoy snooping at what other people are reading? Now a host of websites allow readers to explore each other’s shelves online.”
  • Lost Cat: An Illustrated Meditation on Love, Loss, and What It Means To Be Human. “…a tender, imaginative memoir infused with equal parts humor and humanity… Though “about” a cat, this heartwarming and heartbreaking tale is really about what it means to be human — about the osmosis of hollowing loneliness and profound attachment, the oscillation between boundless affection and paralyzing fear of abandonment, the unfair promise of loss implicit to every possibility of love.”
  • How to Speed Up, Clean Up, and Revive Your Windows PC. “Flowers are blooming and birds are chirping, which means it’s time to start your yearly spring cleaning extravaganza. While you’re emptying your closets, decluttering, and getting rid of the bloat in your life, why not do the same for your computer? Here are some simple, easy to follow tips to give your trusted Windows PC a little spring cleaning of its own.”
  • I do not fear death. “Roger Ebert was always a great friend of Salon’s. We’re deeply saddened by reports of his death, and are re-printing this essay, from his book “Life Itself: A Memoir,” which we think fans will take particular comfort in reading now.”

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How to Turn Your Blog Posts Into an E-Book.

Posted on March 20, 2013 | 6 Comments

ebook

Want to give all those blog articles you’ve written a second life? I certainly do.

I’ve assembled 5 online services that allow you to do just that by capturing blog articles and editing them into an e-book.

Here’s my take on these services. I really like Anthologize but it isn’t compatible with blogs like mine that operate on WordPress.com. Ebook Glue downloads your whole blog and doesn’t appear to allow for editing. Papyrus only works with Chrome and Safari browsers and I use Firefox. I didn’t want to download a different browser just to use their program.

This leaves me with two  services – BookSmith and Zinepal. Both look relatively easy to use.

I can’t wait to get started on my e-book. What about you?

  • Anthologize “…a free, open-source, plugin that transforms WordPress into a platform for publishing electronic texts. Grab posts from your WordPress blog, import feeds from external sites, or create new content directly within Anthologize. Then outline, order, and edit your work, crafting it into a single volume for export in several formats, including—in this release—PDF, ePUB, TEI. Please note that Anthologize cannot be installed on blogs hosted at WordPress.com.” Read more.
  • BookSmith “…a tool that lets you convert your blog posts into print ready book files easily and quickly.We currently support following platforms: Blogger.com (hosted on blogspot.com or elsewhere) and WordPress (self hosted as well as WordPress MU platforms like those on wordpress.com).” Read more.
  • Ebook Glue “…was developed in late 2012, and was launched on December 24, 2012. Since then, over 2,000 blogs have used Ebook Glue to publish their content as a downloadable ebook.” Read more.
  • Papyrus. “…gives you a very simple online editing interface to create your books. Convert your blog to a book in one click.” Read more.
  • Zinepal: “…creates eBooks in the PDF, ePub, Kindle and Mobipocket formats. It’s one of the easiest ways to make eBooks and printable PDFs from existing web content in order to reach additional audiences and offer readers more choices.” Read more.

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Do You Have a Problem Knowing What to Charge Clients?

Posted on January 16, 2013 | Leave a comment

thinking

For many newcomers to the business of Personal Histories determining what to charge is a challenge. There are no set industry standards and fees range from next to nothing to $100+ an hour.

It doesn’t really matter what other personal historians charge for their work. We’re all different. One size does not fit all.  So here’s what to do.

Start with your own expenses

  • Make a detailed listing of all your expenses for a year. Include everything – personal as well as business. Include a “contingency” amount for such things as health emergencies, repairs, travel, etc.
  • Don’t forget taxes and start-up equipment such as printers, scanners, cameras, recorders, etc.
  • Divide your total expenses by 12 to arrive at a monthly estimate.

Let’s imagine your calculations point to monthly expenses of $4,000. If your only source of income is from your personal history work, you’ll need to generate at least $4,000 of income every month or about $1,000 a week just to meet your expenses.

Calculate your billable hours.

Use good time tracking software and determine how much of your time is spent on non-billable activities such as  research, marketing, bookkeeping, file management, and so on. A good rule of thumb is 20% of your billable hours. So if you work a 40 hour week, you’ll be spending about 8 hours a week on non-billable items.

This means you need to charge a little more than $3o an hour for the remaining 32 billable hours in order to bring in a $1000 a week. (40 hr. work week  minus 8 hr. non-billable items)

Determine your profit margin

Being self-employed means both flush and lean times. To ensure that you can bridge those downturns in your business, build in a profit margin. Consider anything from 10% to 30%.

Suppose you decide on 15%. That would mean adding an additional $4.50  (15% of $3o) to your hourly rate bringing it to $34.50.

Charging by the project

You may prefer to charge by the project. If so, estimate the number of hours to complete a project and multiply by your hourly rate.

And Don’t Forget

  • Double the amount of time you think a project will take. It always takes longer than you anticipate.
  • Avoid pricing yourself too low. Clients will assume you’re not good because you’re cheap.
  • Don’t base your rate on what others are charging.
  • You’re a professional and are worth every penny you charge.

Additional Resources

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Monday’s Link Roundup.

Posted on December 24, 2012 | Leave a comment

Monday's Link Roundup

For those of you celebrating Christmas tomorrow, have a very Merry Christmas!

If you’re a fan of director Michael Apted and his “Up” documentary series, you’ll enjoy his interview in The secret to success for director of Up docs? The power of ordinary people.  The folks at Copyblogger are offering a free Internet marketing course. Why not check out Grab Our 20-Part Internet Marketing Course (No Charge) and get a head start on your 2013 marketing?

  • The Paper Trail Through History. “Scholars  “have always looked through documents,” said Ben Kafka, a historian at N.Y.U. and the author of “The Demon of Writing: Powers and Failures of Paperwork,” recently published by Zone Books. “More and more they are also looking at them.”If paperwork studies have an unofficial standard-bearer and theoretician, it’s Mr. Kafka. In “The Demon of Writing” he lays out a concise if eccentric intellectual history of people’s relationship with the paperwork that governs (and gums up) so many aspects of modern life.”
  • 10 Ways to Get Clients in 10 Minutes. “Does it seem like you can never find the time to market for more clients? It’s hard to find open hours in the middle of a busy week. But not every marketing task requires big chunks of time. Here are ten productive things you can do to get more clients when you have just ten minutes.”
  • How 6 New Tools Change the Equation for Writing and Self-Publishing Your Book. “…today’s tools marry writing and publishing, bringing artists ever closer to the end product with click-of-a-button e-book creation capabilities built into the writing tools. In 2012 the technology plot thickened, with the development or maturation of six representative tools that change the way we will write, produce and perhaps even change our very concept of a book in 2013.”
  • Grab Our 20-Part Internet Marketing Course (No Charge). “Want to discover the smartest ways to mix social media, content marketing, and SEO for lead generation and converting those leads to customers and clients? We’ve got you covered with Internet Marketing for Smart People. And there’s absolutely no charge.”

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The Top Personal History Blogs of 2012.

Posted on December 12, 2012 | 4 Comments

fireworks

It gives me great pleasure to announce my fourth annual listing of the best personal history blogs of the year.

I’d like to pay special tribute to two blogs that have consistently shown up on the “best” list since 2009. They demonstrate what it means to be a dedicated blogger.  Please give a rousing cheer to Sharon Lippincott, The Heart and Craft of Life Writing, and Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnet, Women’s Memoirs.

My listing of the “Top” blogs  is based on each demonstrating:

  • Frequent, consistent, and reliable posting.
  • Personable and clear writing.
  • Short scannable articles.
  • Uncluttered pages.
  • Use of graphics, photographs, and video.
  • Intriguing and descriptive headlines.
  • Useful content.

Without further ado, here are my picks for the top seven personal history blogs for 2012, ranked in alphabetical order.

Congratulations to everyone!

  • DMB Picture. Owner  Debbie Mintz Brodsky describes her company as “a boutique video production company specializing in producing broadcast-quality personal stories for families, non-profits and small businesses.”
  • Reel Tributes. Founded in Philadelphia, PA in 2010 by David Adelman. Reel Tributes describes their objective as, ” [delighting] our clients with a film that surpasses their expectations.”
  • True Stories Well Told.  Owner Sarah White says, “Here’s where I share the thoughts I might bring up for class discussion. Here’s where I post the writings of my fearless, peerless, workshop participants. Here’s where I share stories from my own life, as well as my pet peeves, pointers, and personal observations. I hope to create the atmosphere you find in my classrooms.”
  • Verissima Productions. Owners are Rob Cooper and Pam Pacelli Cooper. Pam says that she and Rob have a, “shared love of preserving history. .. we work to bring… stories to life so vividly that anyone watching will feel they are in the midst of the story as it’s being told.”
  • Women’s Memoirs. Owners Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnet have put together a wealth of information that includes writing prompts, book reviews, and more. Women’s Memoirs is not strictly speaking a personal history site but there’s a lot of useful material  here for anyone involved in personal histories.

Photo by Kevin Dooley

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Monday’s Link Roundup.

Posted on October 8, 2012 | Leave a comment

Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian compatriots! In this Monday’s Link Roundup, be sure to check out Top 10 ways to Ditch Your Clutter and Digitally Organize Your Life.  It provides some pretty interesting ways to reduce the mound of stuff squirreled away in our boxes and filing cabinets.   And on a similar theme, you might want to avail yourself of the services of PeggyBank.com. You can read about them in Bringing Your Old-Media Memories Into the Digital Age.

  • Banished Words. “As it has every year since 1976, Lake Superior State University has released its latest “List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Misuse, Overuse, and General Uselessness.” The annual list, the impish brainchild of LSSU’s Public Relations Office, contains the twelve most nominated words among the thousands sent mostly by folks from the United States and Canada. The 2012 list of unfriended words includes the following: amazing (the most nominated), baby bump (a close second), shared sacrifice, occupy, blowback, man cave, the new normal, pet parent, win the future, trickeration, ginormous, and thank you in advance.”
  • The 10 Greatest Biographical Poems (Part 1). “My work documenting lives on video always has me on the lookout for enduring biography in other formats, like great biographical poems.  I can’t claim to have boiled the ocean, but here are the first five of my personal faves.”
  • The Neurochemistry of Empathy, Storytelling, and the Dramatic Arc, Animated. “Paul Zak [is] director of the Center for Neuroeconomic Studies and author of The Moral Molecule: The Source of Love and Prosperity. In this short film on empathy, neurochemistry, and the dramatic arc, directed and edited by my friend Kirby Ferguson and animated by Henrique Barone, Zak takes us inside his lab, where he studies how people respond to stories.”
  • Bringing Your Old-Media Memories Into the Digital Age. “Lots of people have memories locked away on old, deteriorating media: home movies, audio and video tapes, printed photos, negatives and slides…Now, a small company in Omaha, Neb., called PeggyBank.com, is offering a service where you send in all your old media (it will even provide the boxes) and the company will convert all of these items, for a fee, into digital formats and upload them to a free online “vault,” usable from any computer with Web access.”
  • Is It Worth Converting an Old Book Into an eBook? “Although ebooks are exploding in popularity, the tools we have to create them favor straight text books like novels, memoirs and literary nonfiction. With complex books that include all three kinds of content, we’re still a long way away from being able to easily and inexpensively re-launch the books of the past.”
  • Fall fashion – women in veils 1880s-1930s. “Looking through the new fall fashion magazines this weekend, I noticed hats, but few veils. Women have been wearing veils since at least the 13th century B.C. in Assyria. Classical Greek & Hellenistic statues sometimes depict Greek women with both their head & face covered by a veil.  Statues of Persian elite women from Persepolis show examples of some women wearing veils & some without.  Here are a few from the 19th & early 20th century, which I find fascinating.”

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Monday’s Link Roundup.

Posted on August 20, 2012 | Leave a comment

In the Monday’s Link Roundup, don’t miss 20 Awesomely Creative Business Cards. It immediately made me think of ways I could add some “magic” to my own somewhat pedestrian card.  If you’re self-employed, keeping a tight rein on expenses is a given. For some handy tips on penny pinching, check out 7 Habits of Highly Frugal People.  And for everyone who wants to transfer some precious VHS tapes to a digital format, you’ll find a practical solution in Transfer VHS tapes to your computer.

  • Maya Angelou on Home, Belonging, and (Not) Growing Up. “In 2008, Maya Angelou — one of the greatest voices in American literature — penned Letter to My Daughter (public library), a collection of 28 short meditations on subjects as varied as violence, humility, Morocco, philanthropy, poetry, and older lovers, addressed to the daughter she never had but really a blueprint to the life of meaning for any human being with a beating heart.”
  • How to Automatically Archive Your Life with IFTTT and Evernote. “Keeping a journal can be fun, but it’s hard sometimes to keep up with recording all your memories or important thoughts. Brilliant webapp automating service If This Then That (IFTTT) can create an automatic journal for you by archiving your events, pics, and social media posts to Evernote.”
  • 20 Awesomely Creative Business Cards. “At a time when most people network via LinkedIn or some other form of social media, business cards can seem somewhat obsolete…It doesn’t help that most of them are pretty unmemorable…But just the way a beautifully handwritten note stands out in a bevy of text messages and chats, a unique and imaginative business card leaves a lasting impression. We’ve rounded up some of our favorite examples after the jump.”
  • 7 Habits of Highly Frugal People. “If you are tired of living paycheck to paycheck, of having your phone regularly cut off or having to make excuses to skip dinners with your friends if the money has run out before the end of the month then you can use the seven habits of highly effective people to take control of your money situation and live a more frugal lifestyle, and a happier one.”
  • Introducing Literary Jukebox: Daily Book Quote Matched with a Song. “As a lover of both literature and music, I frequently find myself immersed in a passage, with a conceptually related song beginning to play in my mind’s ear. I recently started making such matches more consciously and was quickly drawn into a highly addictive exercise in creative intersections and associations…Sometimes, the connections will be fairly obvious. Other times, they might be more esoteric and require some reflection. Whatever the case, I hope you enjoy — I certainly am.”
  • Transfer VHS tapes to your computer. “Unlike your old vinyl record collection, those VHS tapes you stored away in the back of your closet aren’t going to see a resurgence in popularity. There are no videophiles extolling the superior experience and fidelity of these analog tapes…In this CNET How To video, and in the gallery below, I’ll walk you through the process of transferring those VHS home movies over to your computer using a simple, relatively inexpensive method.”
  • 8000 Facebook members die every day. What happens to their profiles? “Five months ago, Russ Hearl had a friend pass away suddenly. Hearl found out about it on Facebook, and, going to the friend’s profile page, found several comments that he had posted the very day he died.That’s when he decided there needed to be a better way to memorialize a fallen Facebook friend…So he founded Evertalk. As of today the app has been live on Facebook for about four weeks, and users have created 3,000 memorials.”

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Encore! 30 Sites That Will Boost Your Personal History Performance.

Posted on May 16, 2012 | Leave a comment

How many of you could use some further training to enhance your personal history skills? I know I can!

Whether you’re starting out or well established,  here’s a select list of sites that can help.  I’ve combed the Internet to bring you some of the best…Read more.

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Monday’s Link Roundup.

Posted on March 19, 2012 | Leave a comment

In this week’s Monday’s Link Roundup, I was particularly touched by Bowl full of memories. Involved as I am at the moment in sorting through my late mother’s possessions, I’m acutely aware of the power of the stories evoked by even the simplest of objects. And for you wordsmiths, don’t pass up I like words. It’s one tasty treat!

  • Wikipedia Didn’t Kill Britannica. Windows Did. “Print will survive. Books will survive even longer. It’s print as a marker of prestige that’s dying. Historian Yoni Appelbaum notes that from the beginning, Britannica‘s cultural project as a print artifact was as much about the appearance of knowledge as knowledge itself. Britannica “sold $250 worth of books for $1500 to middle class parents buying an edge for their kids,” Appelbaum told me, citing Shane Greenstein and Michelle Devereux’s study “The Crisis at Encyclopædia Britannica.”
  • How the art of eavesdropping is fuelling boom in oral history. “Last week the British Library announced it is to work with local BBC radio stations to set up The Listening Project, a Radio 4 programme that will create an oral survey of the nation by putting together thousands of recorded conversations from across Britain. Selected daily excerpts will be broadcast on Radio 4 before news bulletins from the end of this month and an omnibus edition will be aired at the weekends.”
  • Man Who Learned to Read at 91, Writes a Book at 98. “For 91 years, James Henry, a lifelong fisherman, did not know how to read and write and carried the shame of not being able to order from a menu. It had been his life’s ambition to read. Now 98, the Connecticut captain has achieved that, and more, penning a memoir of short stories about his life at sea.” [Thanks to Paula Stahel of Breath & Shadows Productions for alerting me to this item.]
  • ‘Your Playlist Can Change Your Life’: Can music boost your brain? “Anyone who’s had a bad day, then flipped the car radio on and caught the first notes of a favorite song knows how quickly music can lift the spirits. But can that momentary burst of musical power be tapped more strategically to make you a better, happier, more productive person?”
  • 15 Books That Should Be On Every Grammar Geek’s Bookshelf. “People writing “your” when they mean “you’re” makes you cringe. The song “The Way I Are” makes your hair stand on end. You can’t read user comments on websites anymore because you can feel brain cells dying off just trying to make sense of them. You, dear friend, are a grammar geek. As such, there are books that constitute required reading for those of your ilk. After you’re done editing this article, proceed to your nearest bookstore and purchase these must-have titles for rolling in the depths of grammar.”
  • I like words. “When copywriter Robert Pirosh landed in Hollywood in 1934, eager to become a screenwriter, he wrote and sent the following letter to all the directors, producers, and studio executives he could think of. The approach worked, and after securing three interviews he took a job as a junior writer with MGM. Pirosh went on to write for the Marx Brothers, and in 1949 won an Academy Award for his Battleground script.”
  • Bowl full of memories. “…we are defined by so much more than our possessions, despite our rampant consumerism. Yet I believe that for each of us, there are one or two objects that resonate so much, they indeed cut to the heart of who we are.”

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Monday’s Link Roundup.

Posted on February 20, 2012 | Leave a comment

This Monday’s Link Roundup has a couple of useful articles that’ll improve your website. After reading Are You Making These 7 Mistakes with Your About Page?,  I realized that I’ve got some work to do on my About Page. And How to Write is a pithy 10-point list that all bloggers need to take to heart. If you’re a personal historian and unfamiliar with Cowbird, you owe it to yourself to read Cowbird Debuts New Saga on Valentine’s Day. It’s another innovative way of collecting stories.

  • My Memoir Helped Me Reconnect With My Family. “The writing of Man Shoes was a legacy exercise for my sons that turned into a therapeutic exercise for myself. The healing and understanding that has come about through the writing of Man Shoes is miraculous. At fifty years of age, I am now a much stronger, more secure, happier, and more productive individual than I have ever been. Hopefully Man Shoes continues to inspire others in the coming months and years–just as it did me as I wrote it.”
  • Graphic Atlas. “…a new online resource that brings sophisticated print identification and characteristic exploration tools to archivists, curators, historians, collectors, conservators, educators, and general public.”
  • Cowbird Debuts New Saga on Valentine’s Day. “Email and text messaging have left many of us accustomed to instant gratification when it comes to communication, though impulsive tweets and status updates often lead to regret. Our methods of communication have evolved so rapidly, many of us can now tweet about anything (or nothing) within a few seconds. In the era of 140-character updates, when the lingo has become so foreign that you may need a translator to follow Twitter conversations, have our messages lost their depth? Jonathan Harris thinks so – and says his new project, Cowbird, houses personal, searchable storytelling – and may someday be the one-stop shop for an inclusive public library of human experience.”
  • How to Write. “On September 7th of 1982, advertising legend David Ogilvy sent an internal memo to all employees of his advertising agency, Ogilvy & Mather. The memo was entitled “How to Write,” and consisted of the following list of advice.”
  • A Way with Words. “Public radio’s lively language show.” [Thanks top Wendy Ledger of VoType for alerting me to this item.]
  • Best of the Blogs: Old School and New Skills. “Don’t have time to keep up with design and photography blogs? Keep calm and read on. In this blog round-up you’ll find the most popular fonts of 2011, an amazing type book from 1912, a Herb Lubalin video from the 1980s, and a Photoshop cooking demonstration from 2007. Plus, there are plenty of Photoshop how-tos, digital photography tips, and design ideas.”
  • Are You Making These 7 Mistakes with Your About Page? “…lots of website owners have an easier time proposing marriage than they do writing a solid About Page. If that’s you, you’re probably overcomplicating things. A good About Page is simple, straightforward, and it communicates just a few key things.”

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