Here at Two Tree Press, we pride ourselves in helping our customers meet their self-publishing goals. Whether it is through direct staff support, through ideas generating from staff and web-site interactions, or through tools to help you self-publish in all phases, we are here to help you in your self-publishing projects.

The following excerpts and recommendations are from recent work with publishing Life Stories.

Talk

Many people are faced with aging of family members that have many great stories to tell but no process in place to archive the stories for the benefit of generations to come. We have found that the simple recording of conversations can lead to this archive of Life Stories. The conversations can either be recorded while chatting with family members, or recorded with a third party interviewer helping draw the stories out.

Samples of helpful leading questions you may want to consider using are:

1. Where were you born?

2. What are your memories from childhood starting from the earliest memory?

3. Who were your childhood friends, and are you still friends with any of them.

4. What was your favorite thing to do as a child? And who was it with if anyone?

5. What are your memories of your family? Did you have any family gatherings? If so, what were they like?

6. What are your memories of your parent? Grandparents?

7. How would you describe your teenage years? At that time in your life what were you like?

8. Who was your first love?

9. What were some life changing experiences that occurred in adolescence years?

10. How do you feel you differed from your teenage years to your 20’s?

11. Who was a major part of your life in your 20’s?

12. Did you attend college and if so what were you going to school for and did your career path change as time went on?

13. Did you do any traveling? If so, were there some memorable experiences and where were they?

14. What kind of things did you enjoy doing in your spare time?

15. Where are the places where you have lived?

16. When did you marry? What is marriage like compared to when you git married and now? Is it different? If so how?

17. When did you have children? Describe your relationship with them. Do you see any of you in them as they get older? If so explain.

 How were your 30’s? How do they differ from your 20’s and did you change?

19. Now that you are older, can you see any personality traits that resemble your parent? If so, in what ways?

20. Did you have specific goals in life that you were proud to have accomplished? If so, what were they and describe what you did to achieve your goal.

21. Do you have any regrets?

22. If you could go back and do anything different in your life, what would it be?

23. What were some disappointments that have occurred in your life and did you learn anything from them?

24. What were some of the most exciting times in your life? Did you have a wild streak? Is there anything you wish you had the guts to do?

25. Describe a time in your life of which you could do over and over again? How did it make you feel and why?

26. How have things changed since you were a child opposed to today?

Those are just some questions that might help you begin.

If you are interested in having the staff at Two Tree Press help you with the interview process then Contact Us or learn more about our services at Talk.

Type

If you are looking for a way to minimize the time spent typing the content for your self-publishing project then we would suggest the use speech recognition software to help do the typing for you. Recent technology advances in the latest version of Dragon Naturally Speaking developed by Nuance Communications, Inc. make it a very approachable alternative to typing. Dragon allows for the spoken word to be converted into text onto your computer. This product has a reputation of being 99% accurate, it is computer friendly, and you are able to use with any windows program. For more information on this product, please visit http://www.nuance.com/naturallyspeaking/

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As well, if you are interested in having the staff at Two Tree Press help you with the typing then Contact Us or learn more about our services at Type.

Edit

A consistent voice and clarity of grammar helps every self-published document communicate more effectively. If you are interested in self-editing your publication then we suggest using the AP Stylebook for your editing guidance. This is a common tool used by writers of all experience levels. Print and electronic versions are available through www.apstylebook.com

As well, if you are interested in having the staff at Two Tree Press help with the editing of your document then Contact Us or learn more about our services at Edit.

Print

For your printing and binding your documents there are numerous options to consider. To help simplify the search we recommend the use of Mimeo. This is a no contract, no minimum order company with a quick turnaround time and a high rating for their customer service. For more information on Mimeo please visit their website at www.mimeo.com

As well, if you are interested in having the staff at Two Tree Press help with the printing or binding of your document then Contact Us or learn more about our services at Print.