Lessons I Learned

 Dennis L. Peterson

When I began genealogical research years ago, I never dreamed my efforts would produce a book. What began as a personal curiosity became a quest to preserve the family heritage for my children and grandchildren. Almost before I knew it, it had become a book, A Goodly Heritage: A Peterson Family Legacy.

Here are a few of those lessons about how (and how not) to gather and write your findings.

1. Determine your target audience.

My intended audience was immediate family—my four daughters and my seven grandchildren—and perhaps a few interested distant relatives and friends. I intended to give the books as Christmas gifts. The target you set will determine how you address the people in the history you write and how to market it.

2. Do your basic genealogical research.

The essential sources include family records (both written and photographic), family stories and traditions, family graveyards, individuals’ obituaries, census records, and military service records and interviews of older family members while they are still around.

3. Set your limitations.

Genealogical research can be endless. One detail leads to others. Determine how far to go, which tree branches to cover, and which (if any) photographs to use—then stick to those limitations!

4. Avoid sidetracks and rabbit trails.

The temptation to chase rabbit trails is present in writing family history. I got off track trying to trace my uncle’s footsteps during World War II. Although interesting, it was a poor use of my time and energy.

5. Include interesting tidbits.

Show your readers the setting—historical, financial, and cultural—in which your “characters” lived. Make them more human and more interesting by including anecdotes and examples from their lives.

6. Set a deadline and a timetable for completing your project.

A deadline forces you to keep working with a clear purpose and helps you finish the project. My quest originally was to last one year. Instead, it lasted more than two.

7. Determine a publishing format to use.

Will you staple printed, typewritten pages or bind it? If bound, will it be perfect or spiral bound? Or will it be professionally designed and printed? Will you try to obtain a traditional publisher or self-publish? Unlike my traditionally published Confederate Cabinet Departments and Secretaries (McFarland, 2016) and Combat! Spiritual Lessons from Military History (TouchPoint, 2020), I chose to self-publish my family history using Amazon’s CreateSpace program (now Kindle Direct Publishing). This gave me a great deal of freedom in choosing the layout and design for the book and allowed sales to anyone, not just the target relatives (although that was not my intent), through Amazon.com.

Whether you present the story of your family’s history as a gift or intend it for sale, research it thoroughly and enjoy the journey.

Dennis L. Peterson is an independent author, historian, and editor with numerous published credits in regional and national journals and magazines since 1981. A former history and writing teacher and lead author of American history textbooks and curricula for a major Christian textbook publisher. Served as senior technical editor for Lockheed Martin Energy Systems, Inc. at the historic Oak Ridge, Tennessee, nuclear facilities. He is a member of several historical organizations, including the Society of Independent Southern Historians, the East Tennessee Historical Society, and the Travelers Rest (SC) Historical Society, on the board of which he also serves as 2nd vice president. He is also a docent for the History Museum of Travelers Rest. His areas of special interest include Southern history, the War Between the States, the Great Depression, and World War II as well as biblical studies
Soon to be published by TouchPoint Press: Christ in Camp and Combat: Religious Work in the Confederate Armies (due to be released in Spring 2021) and Evangelism and Expulsion: Missionary Work Among the Cherokees Before Removal (due to be released in Summer 2021).  Visit him on his website: https://www.dennislpeterson.com/

PERSONAL STUDY LED TO COMBAT! Part II

Dennis Peterson    @dlpeditor

Independent author, Historian, and Editor

To refresh our memory in Part I on February 21 I began telling the process of how the idea for my book Combat! was born and how it became published.

Waiting for an author does not mean idleness. I immediately got busy with another writing project that I had already started. I learned that whenever I got stuck with something on writing the Combat! project, I could shift to the secondary project and then return to Combat! when I arrived at a solution to the problem. (It pays to have several irons in the fire at once!)

Once the publisher solidified a cover design, I used that image to create my own marketing materials: a press kit (press release, author photo and bio, etc.), business cards (with the cover pictured on one side and contact and ordering information on the other), and book marks (with the cover pictured along with ordering information on one side and “About the Book” and “About the Author” on the other). Then I began distributing those materials as opportunity permitted until the publisher announced a release date, at which point I began distributing them energetically and announcing the book’s soon release on various social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, and ,my personal blog).

I found reception of the materials to be a mixed bag. Some media outlets ignored it. Others inserted a brief blurb about it. A few contacted me for more information or to request an interview. The amount those outlets printed about the book also varied, from a brief Facebook announcement of the book’s release to devotion of a half-page of newsprint to the author and the book. Such varied response is to be expected. And only time will tell how my efforts and the publisher’s marketing efforts paid off.

Combat! posits that the Christian life is a life of spiritual warfare on many different fronts simultaneously. There are times of heavy combat and times of light combat but never times of no combat! We are always in a dangerous combat zone as believers. With enemy attacks coming on all these fronts, whether sequentially or simultaneously, we must always be on our guard.

To prove this point and others in the book, I turned first to the military history of Israel as recorded in the Bible. Beginning with Abram’s campaign to rescue his nephew Lot and moving through Israel’s conflicts with the various Canaanite tribes during the conquest of the Promised Land to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, illustratring spiritual truths applicable to Christians today. In the second part of the book, I show how the various organizational aspects of the modern military—command and control, communications, logistics, intelligence, etc.—have parallels in the spiritual world as well and applies them to the individual in common life here and now.

But I am not resting on my laurels of this now-published work. I have contracted with TouchPoint for another book, Christ in Camp and Combat: Religious Work in the Confederate Armies. For the serious writer, the ideas for projects just keep coming!

Dennis L. Peterson is an independent historian based in Taylors, SC. He focuses on American history, especially its military history, the War Between the States, the Great Depression, and World War II. His former positions include history and writing teacher; senior technical editor at the historic Oak Ridge, Tennessee, nuclear weapons complex; and lead author of American history textbooks and curricula for a major Christian textbook publisher. He has been widely published in national and regional magazines and educational journals. His other books include Confederate Cabinet Departments and Secretaries, Teacher: Teaching and Being Taught, and Look Unto the Hills: Stories of Growing Up in Rural East Tennessee. He has contracted with TouchPoint Press for his next book, Christ in Camp and Combat: Religious Work in the Confederate Armies. You can contact the author
on his blog, https://dlpedit.wordpress.com ; Facebook Dennis L Peterson, LinkedIn Dennis L. 
Peterson Independent Writer/Historian and Email dlpauthor@gmail.com

MY BREAKTHROUGH INTO BOOK PUBLISHING

By Dennis L. Peterson           

Writing for publication was nothing new to me. I had been writing for publication since my first submission was accepted in February 1981. With that first published article, I had caught the “bug,” and I wrote and submitted prolifically. But I went through a long period of rejection until I learned better how and where to submit my work. Then the acceptances resumed, slowly at first but then more steadily.

Meanwhile, I transitioned from teaching (junior high/high school history and writing) to editing, all the while continuing to submit articles. Many of them were accepted and published. But when a full-time job writing secondary-level history textbooks opened, I grabbed it and began studying and writing history as I’d never done before. But during the next eleven years, I noticed that my writing skills were deteriorating because I was not really writing but rather merely revising and tweaking what other writers had already written.  I found myself administratively restricted from having meaningful input to content and presentation despite my educational background and teaching and writing experience. I began using some of my research time to pursue a special interest in Southern history.

On August 31, 2015, I left textbook “writing” to resume independent editing and writing, thinking that it would also be a way of easing into semiretirement. The first two weeks surpassed my wildest expectations. On my first day “on my own,” I queried a magazine I had written for nineteen years earlier. The editor replied within the hour. He remembered not only me but also the earlier article, gave me the go-ahead on my proposal, and eventually accepted the resulting article. It was subsequently published in the December 2015 issue of Blue Ridge Country.

That first day, I also studied my options for a book based on the research I had been doing for the previous four or five years. I ranked various publishers according to the types of books they published, the ratio of books published to submissions received, the percentage of books by new authors, royalty rates, and other factors. After narrowing the field to two publishers, I submitted simultaneously identical book queries. I expected to wait at least a couple of months before hearing from either of them.

Within an hour, however, one publisher replied. He was interested in my idea and wanted me to send a full proposal package, including the first three chapters. Thankfully, I already had the bulk of the manuscript written, so I began putting together the rest of the package, including a market survey and explanations of why my book was needed and why I was the one to write it. By the end of the day, I received a similar reply from the second publisher. I duplicated the original proposal package, tweaking it a bit to fit the second publisher, and mailed both packages.

During the second week on my own, I got a reply from the first book publisher. He was ready to offer me a contract as soon as I could give him a firm date by which I could deliver the completed manuscript package, including all photos and text permissions. Since I had much of the manuscript written already, I tried to be optimistic while at the same time leaving myself “wiggle room” in case anything went wrong. I had no idea how long it would take to acquire photos and permissions. I said that I thought I could finish the project by December 15.

By the end of that week, I had a contract with December 31 as the delivery date. I immediately set out to make—or beat—that deadline. It involved more work than I expected. I not only had to proof what I had already written, finish writing to fill gaps I had left because of a lack of information, and fact check everything, but also locate photographs and obtain permission to use them and any text excerpts. I finally finished and delivered the completed manuscript package on November 17, 2015.

The publisher immediately began design and editorial work, and I’ve tried to respond quickly to questions from the marketing department as it puts together a promotional campaign for the book. I continue to educate myself on how best to build and expand my author’s platform. I’m still a newbie, but McFarland Publishing has included my first book, Confederate Cabinet Departments and Secretaries, in their Spring 2016 catalog. Meanwhile, I continue to submit articles and have even begun thinking about what my next book will be.

If I could do it, you can too!

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Dennis L. Peterson is an independent writer and historian based in Taylors, S.C. A former teacher, his articles have appeared in numerous educational journals, homeschooling magazines, and general interest publications. His areas of special interest include Southern history, the War Between the States, the Depression, and World War II. He is also a member of the Faculty Network of the Foundation for Economic Education. Find Dennis on social media; Facebook, Website, and LinkedIn.com--Dennis Peterson