How to Make a Memory Book for an Author
- 1). Talk with the author about wanting to make a memory book about her. If you are able to contact the author you have in mind, then this is your first step to success with the book. Authors receive a lot of letters, emails and requests so ensure that your request to create a memory book for them is professional, courteous, and to the point.
- 2). Decide what the memory book will include. To make a memory book about a person you will certainly require their input. Get together with the author if possible, and ask her to bring along past photographs, letters, anecdotes, poetry, notes and stories she may want included. All these will provide the content of the memory book. Bring a recorder to your meeting and, if she is ok with the idea, capture the stories she tells you about the photographs, souvenirs and memories. The background stories will assist you in arranging the content in a logical manner.
- 3). Scan the photographs to transform them into digital ones. Use a flatbed scanner and ensure that you edit the photographs to make it clearer. If you wish to self-publish the memory book, use an online company that offers digital printing of photos. Alternately, you could look into the benefits and drawbacks of giving memory book publishers the content (text and photographs) to publish on your behalf.
- 4). Assemble your photographs and the text content through desk top publishing. With software programs such as PageMaker and Quark XPress for desktop publishing, you can assemble anything from a one-page document to a full-length book. Upload the various elements of content, arrange and design it in a logical manner to create the author's story.
- 5). Bind the edited and printed pages into a neat book or send the material out for printing. Purchase a beautiful hard-cover binder to insert the pages within, or contact a company dealing with memory book binding and decoration. There is a multitude of these companies online and it does not cost much. After it is bound, present the memory book to the author as a gift.
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