Writing Local History Today guides local historians through the process of researching, writing, and publishing their work. Mason & Calder present step-by-step advice to guide aspiring authors to a successful publication and focus not only on how to write well but also how to market and sell their work. Highlights include: ·Discussion of how to identify an audience for your writing project ·Tips for effective research and planning ·Sample documents, such as contracts and requests for proposals ·Discussion of how to use social media to leverage your publication ·Discussion of the benefits and drawbacks to self-publishing ·An essay by Gregory Britton, the editorial director of John Hopkins University Press, about financial pitfalls in publishing This guide is useful for first-time authors who need help with this sometimes daunting process, or for previously published historians who need a quick reference or timely tip.

"Mason (history, Indiana U.) and Calder (executive director, Texas State Historical Association) present this handbook for local history authors in four pointed chapters. The short first chapter impresses considerations of audience and its influence on style and tone. Chapter two covers the research process, including where to find records and how to use and evaluate different kinds of sources. Chapter three explains how to translate a large body of research into a readable text. The final chapter discusses the economic and design aspects of getting a book published. A large section of appendices provides sample contracts, submission guidelines, and a recap of book finance from the publisher's point of view." - Book News, Inc.

"Written in an accessible and non-technical style, each of the four chapters provides sensible advice on the different stages of producing a work of the genre. In addition, eight appendices provide practical information and samples on author guidelines, contracts, and requests for proposals. . . .[T]his book constitutes a practical guide for authors in local history and church historians will no doubt benefit from consulting it." - Anglican and Episcopal History

"The collaborative work of Thomas A. Mason and J. Kent Calder, Writing Local History Today: A Guide to Researching, Publishing, and Marketing Your Book is a 148 page instruction manual specifically designed to assist the novice writer seeking to produce salable work in the field of writing local community histories. Deftly organized into four chapters (The Consumer: Who Is Your Audience?; Evidence: Where Do You Find It? How Do You Use It?; Communication: How Do You Shape a Specialized Subject for a Nonspecialist Audience?; Economics, Design, and Production: How Do You Produce and Market A Book That People Will Pay For?). Succinctly comprehensive, immanently practical, thoroughly 'user friendly', and enhanced with the inclusion of eight appendices ranging from 'Sample Author's Guideline' to 'Why Books Cost: A quick Lesson in Finance for Publishers', a four page Bibliography, and a comprehensive index, Writing Local History Today will prove to be an invaluable addition to any aspiring writer's reference shelf in general, and a 'must' for anyone wanting to enter the specialized field of local history writing in particular." - Midwest Book Review

"Writing Local History Today answers dozens of questions and offers much concrete advice. Calder is executive director of the Texas State Historical Association and Mason teaches at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. . . .The book is designed for those doing local history who want to ‘enhance [their] research and make their writing of it more effective’ and those who want to understand the process and prospects of various kinds of publication. . . . The book opens with a chapter on audience, reminding authors to give this issue serious consideration because their decisions about readership are crucially important for a domino cascade of other choices, such as what to include and what not include (and how to decide), the level of language, the scope, etc. Mason and Calder include practical guidance, too, on citing sources and avoiding plagiarism, on writing a proposal, on book design and ecomonics, and marketing. Two especially valuable chapters focus on research and writing. In ‘‘Evidence: Where Do You Find it? How Do You Use It? (Research),’’ the authors offer a terrific guide to primary sources and how to gain access to them. They also offer guidance on how to assess different kinds of sources, too, such as newspapers, diaries, and various official accounts. Any of them can be valuable, the authors remind us, but none of them gives ‘the answer.’ All of them need to be used carefully. The communication chapter includes direct, intelligible, and good rules for good writing that could benefit many authors not just local historians). . . . I recommend reading it in conjunction with Carol Kammen’s On Doing Local History and Joseph Amato’s Rethinking Home. This trio of books will spur the imagination, offer guidance and support, and will help any writer of local history grapple with the really hard, good, interesting, and worthwhile issues that face them (us). us)." - The Public Historian