Getting the money together
The writing and research was easy. The difficult bit was getting the money together at the right time. The project had a timetable of three years. Grant bodies often say that they want money spent within a financial year, so the Society delayed applying for grants until the last year. This means that they had to commit to printing before they knew that their applications for money had been successful. ‘In fact we arranged a loan, just in case, but it came together at the last minute.’

Technology interface
Most members of the History Society are elderly, few use computers. The book was typed on an elderly computer using Windows 95. Despite preliminary reassurances, this proved incompatible with the printers equipment so ‘things slipped…’ and hard to be corrected by hand, especially all the family trees were the lines did not meet in the right places.

Hardback or softback
‘This is a dip in book’. With over 300 pages of information this is a wellindexed reference book. The Society therefore decided to produce it as a hard back because the book will stay open at a page, it is more robust and easier to use. Producing a hardback was only £1500 extra on top of a soft back print cost of £6500.

A names index
Since publication, another index has been produced for the 2000 or so names in the book. This makes it much easier to answer the many queries from people researching their ancestors and family histories.

Pricing the book
A hardback book of over 300 pages is selling well for £14.95. People are delighted with it. ‘…we didn’t know it was as good as this…’

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