Make a list of the stories you would like to write about and add to the list as you think of others. As you have time, flesh out one of the stories. Then, do another one. And so forth. If you have photos to illustrate your stories, digitize them and add them to your stories.
It
sounds rather daunting at first but since you do a book in phases and
over time it really is quite easy and satisfying. The secret to success
is to try to do just a little on the book each week. By the end of 52 weeks, you will have accumulated a ton of stories.
You can use Grammarly (a free software) to check over the book. It checks your spelling, grammar, and punctuation for free.
Once you have accumulated stories and photos you need to decide what type of book you want. Blurb.com can print books in many sizes. Some cost much more than others and you may want to consider your intended audience.
For instance, the book on my father I first created in Microsoft WORD and published it by using BookSmart (software which Blurb.com will let you use free). It was an
8’ x 10” coffee-table type of book with photos the size of the 8 x 10
page. I wanted to include all of my dad’s wonderful photos so I wanted
photo-quality paper and the largest-size book. It cost well over $100 to
print each copy. It turned out great but it was a bit costly to
disseminate to others.
I later took my original WORD document and reformatted it into a 6 x 9 Trade-sized book which cost only $25 for each hard-copy book. The photos were not as sharp but it sure was cheaper and more readable.
Later,
when some friends were interested in the book, I reformatted it again,
printed it with a softcover, and brought the cost down to less than $10
for each book. I was thus able to print five copies and gift them to my
friends. However, the photos were not as good.
Unless
your goal is a beautiful photo coffee-table type photo book, it is
much, much easier, and less expensive, to create a trade-book size (6 x
9). You can set it up in WORD which is much easier to edit and reformat.
When done, you can make a PDF version and send that in for printing.
(You can find free software to convert your book to PDF on the web.)
At the time you upload your book to Blurb.com you can decide if you want a softcover or a hardcover. One decision you have to make is the quality of the paper in the book. I generally opt for the cheapest quality paper for my Trade and paperback books but when I do a Travel photo book I select photo-quality paper.
Of course, you can reformat any of your books into eBook format that can be read by an iPad or a Kindle for a modest sum.
If
you are using BookSmart (their free software) to create your book it
is quite simple to do your covers as they have templates to help you do them.
You
can also use WORD to design your Trade book covers using the guidelines
published by Blurb.com as to margins and such and then convert it to
PDF.