How to Write and Self-Publish Your Autobiography

Even if you never plan to publish it for the masses, writing your own autobiography can give you something to pass down to at least your family. Today, the technology to both create and publish your autobiography in book format is very user-friendly and fairly inexpensive. In this article, I'll give you tips on how to do this.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Microsoft Word
• Materials to cue your memory
• Access to the Internet

1. First, you need to gather materials to help cue your memory--childhood photos, yearbooks, old diaries and journals, etc. Talking with friends and relatives about the project can help as well.

2. Free write based on the information you have available--if needed you can create separate Word documents for different phases and moments to keep yourself organized, that's fine. If you get stuck in one section, you can start on another. The main point of this stage is to access your memories and get down things you may not recall without prompts.

3. Decide on how you want to structure the book. Many people start with their earliest memories and work their way to the present, but you can get creative. Does your life have an arch or theme to it? What are key defining moments that changed your life? What would you want your great-great grandchildren or future generation to know about you?

4. Before you format the final book, check into your options as far as self-publishing. I know that Lulu.com has Word templates you can download with page numbers and margins specifically for printing the size book you want. (If you put everything together first, you may find yourself going through a lot of pages where you have pressed enter but then in the document for printing have a line break in wrong places.)

5. When choosing a self-publisher, make sure you're not being asked to pay hundreds of dollars for the "right" to publish--that is basically a scam. Lulu.com and similar sites only ask you as the author to pay for the cost of printing an individual book, which isn't that expensive. You'll usually get a small price break for a bulk number of copies, but there should be no hard quotas to the point you're stuck with a bunch of copies you don't want or need.

Resources

• More Articles by Cougar1002
• Writer's Reference Directory--Updated
• Cougar1002's Article Blog and Portfolio

[Irishgirl]

on 1/4/2009 Wonderful ideas. Thanks!

[niknik2008]

on 12/13/2008 Very insightful Article!

[PABechko]

on 11/30/2008 Made some great points. Be careful in choosing who you partner with to self-publish!