(Note: the blue horizontal menu bar directly above lists the subsections of "Telling the Story." Be sure to read each of these subsections before moving on to the next primary section, "Keeping the Story Going.")

Telling the Story: The Final Product

In addition to clarifying who your audience is, it is important to determine quite early in your efforts what kind of final product you wish to produce. Will you prepare a conventional hardbound book? If so, who will publish it? How will you finance its publication? If you intended to produce a more elaborate book with many photos, the publication will be still more expensive; can you afford such plans?

Perhaps conventional publishing is not right for you. Rather than trying to find a commercial publisher who has to think in terms of a minimum number of copies and a minimum return per copy, what about finding publishing resources within your congregation? Are there members who can help with editing, proofreading, page layout, computer typesetting, and so forth? What about desktop publishing, which has the advantage of greatly reducing production costs and allows for revised editions to be more easily prepared? What about publishing your product on the Web, making it possible for readers to provide immediate feedback, search on key words, and download a print-ready version onto their computers?

Women's Home and Foreign Missionary Society, General Synod, Louisville, Kentucky (1911)