Your family history is unique. So why would you want a cookie-cutter template? At the RootsTech Family History and Technology Conference, a number of people came to our Stories To Tell exhibit and asked, “Do you have software or a template to create books?” We didn’t, and we don’t ever intend to make a book according to a template. A template-based book, compared to a custom book, is like a child’s paint-by-numbers kitcompared to a real, original work of art. We don’t offer templates, but a lot of people do. For example,ancestry.com’s My Canvas promises, “Family History Books auto fill with your family group sheets, pedigree charts, and timelines using Ancestry.com records.” Others offer lists of questions to answer which would generate some book text, and there are publishing packages to create family histories. These packages suggest that if you just point and click, you have a book. Ease of use is often a good thing, but what if something important is lost? The function of a template is to mass produce items in the same shape and pattern. Your family may be special or unusual people, but your book won’t be.

Is an ebook right for you? Ebooks are another alternative for self-publishing authors who want to produce and distribute their book. We have been creating ebooks for a few years now, and they are easier to create than ever. Let's look at how ebooks are produced, who sells them, who buys them, and whether this option will work for you. Much of the positive hype around ebooks is coming from the publishing industry. Publishers love ebooks, as they eliminate the cost of printing and therefore are cheaper to produce. Digital publishing also eliminates the middleman role of retail bookstores. Many readers have been motivated to buy an ereader device. Why? For the device’s portability, for the convenient digital bookstore, and for the inexpensive book prices, sometimes significantly less than print. This leads some people to believe that producing an ebook is cheap. With a text-only book, this is true, and you can make an ebook yourself. I recommend Smashwords. However, illustrated ebooks, like print books, are much more complicated to design, and they can cost almost as much to create as a print book. The savings is in the printing, not in the design.