Thomas A. Mason - Writing Local History Today: A Guide to Researching, Publishing, and Marketing Your Book

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR STATE AND LOCAL HISTORY
BOOK SERIES

A division of

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD

Lanham Boulder New York Toronto Plymouth, UK

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Mason, Thomas A.

Writing local history today : a guide to researching, publishing, and marketing your book / Thomas A. Mason and J. Kent Calder.

pages cm.(American Association for State and Local History)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-7591-1902-4 (cloth : alk. paper)ISBN 978-0-7591-2395-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-7591-1904-8 (electronic)

1. Local historyHandbooks, manuals, etc. 2. Local historyAuthorshipHandbooks, manuals, etc. 3. LocaL historyPublishingHandbooks, manuals, etc. I. Calder, J. Kent, 1951 II. Title.

D13.M326 2013

907.2dc23

2013015986

TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

To Christine and Tara

We incurred many debts, intellectual and otherwise, while writing this book. Our colleagues on the Editorial Advisory Board of the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) first encouraged us to undertake this project. Russell Lewis, editor of the AASLH Book Series and executive vice president of the Chicago History Museum, and Bob Beatty, the AASLHs vice president for programs, collegially kept us on task. The AASLHs anonymous outside reader offered some suggestions that enabled us to revise the manuscript in useful ways. Colleagues at the Indiana Historical SocietyRay E. Boomhower, senior editor; M. Teresa Baer, managing editor, Family History Publications; Suzanne Hahn, director of reference services; and Susan Sutton, coordinator, visual reference services; and at Indiana UniversityPurdue University IndianapolisElizabeth Brand Monroe, associate professor of history; Modupe Labode, assistant professor of history and museum studies; and Kristi L. Palmer, associate librarian, pointed out directions for developing the manuscript. Ty Cashion, professor of history at Sam Houston State University, offered useful clarification on divergent strains of Texas history research and writing. Gregory M. Britton, editorial director at Johns Hopkins University Press, contributed his Why Books Cost: A Quick Lesson in Finance for Publishers, which appears as appendix 8 in this volume. He also read the entire manuscript and offered several suggestions for its improvement. Colleagues at the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group guided the book through its writing and publication stages. Marissa Marro Parks, associate editor, advised us as we organized and wrote the manuscript, and Charles Harmon, executive editor, provided needed encouragement at a critical phase of the project. We accept responsibility for the conclusions here presented.

Finally, our wivesChristine H. Guyonneau, university archivist at the University of Indianapolis, and Tara M. Carlisle, librarian at the University of North Texashelped us to think like archivists and librarians and to realize the expanding range of possibilities for conducting research in the digital age. We therefore dedicate this book to them.

People who have cultivated new and detailed knowledge of their locality can perform a notable service by communicating that knowledge. There is great value in researching, synthesizing, and disseminating new knowledge of a community. The writing of local history has expanded its horizons in exciting ways in recent years to embrace culture broadly defined to include a wide variety of topics including music, art, and the social and ethnic composition of the community.

In the introduction to his classic book, Researching,Writing,andPublishingLocalHistory, first published in 1976 and last reprinted in 1988, Thomas E. Felt clearly identified his audience: This book is directed to anyone who has already admitted an interest in studying the past and is now considering doing something about it besides reading the works of other historians.WritingLocalHistoryToday:AGuidetoResearching,Publishing,andMarketing