START & RUN A
PERSONAL HISTORY BUSINESS
Start & Run a Personal History Business is a comprehensive guide to creating and publishing
memoirs and family histories. For the entrepreneur looking for a rewarding business — part-time or
full-time, fresh out of college or in the second-career stage — it explains how to do the work, find
clients, market your services, price your products competitively and profitably, make sales, grow and
expand your business, and much more. Packed with practical advice and tips, it offers an overview of the
field of personal history, then takes you through:
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start-up
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business foundations
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producing a sample
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recording and interviewing, transcribing, writing, editing, organizing
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contracts and finances
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project management
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client relations
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marketing and sales, and
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growth and expansion.
In the book and on the CD (compatible with both Mac and PC), there are dozens of resources, recommended
reading, templates, forms and worksheets that you can use as you build your business.
This book isn't just for business start-ups. Experienced personal historians will find inspiration and new
ideas for marketing and sales, doing a business plan (that works!), leading memoir-writing workshops,
developing skills, problem-solving for tricky client situations, advice on digital recording and
publishing, and much more.
Even if you are a memoir-writer yourself, or teach memoir-writing, and don't plan to offer your services
for sale, you'll find a wealth of information on how to document, record and publish your own life story or
that of a loved one.
Start & Run a Personal History also covers how to do corporate histories, ethical wills, community
histories, tribute or memorials, house histories and much more.
Why I Wrote This Book
When I started Heritage Memoirs in 2002, there was no manual or guide. Helping preserve life stories is a
unique business with so many variables and issues, and I learned a lot by trial-and-error. Slowly but surely
I gained the skills and knowledge I needed to build a successful business. I've been asked for help from many
budding personal historians, and came to the conclusion that maybe I could share a fair degree of experience.
I was very pleased when Self-Counsel Press, my publisher, agreed that the field was indeed at the "tipping
point" and that enough people would want to know how to go about building a business doing this
soul-satisfying work. This guide represents almost a decade of information-gathering, study and research,
drawn from my own experiences and from experts in the field of genealogy, ethical wills and marketing, just
to name a few.
I hope you enjoy the book and wish you every success as you explore this fascinating field of personal
history.
Jennifer
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