Decide the shape of the book before anything else

Before you think about printing, picture the person who will read it. In most families that is an aunt in a comfortable chair with a cup of tea, or a cousin who lives four hours away and reads things on the kitchen table. That reader is the reason to keep the book simple, sturdy and easy to hold. A tidy paperback of forty to eighty pages will be read far more often than a heavy hardback that lives in a box under the bed.

Decide on three things early: size, page count and paper type. For a family history that mixes photographs with short written memories, A4 portrait is the practical choice if you have large scanned documents, and A5 portrait feels more like a proper book if you are mostly working with text and a handful of photos. Aim for a page count in multiples of four, because folded sheets always come in fours. Sixty-four pages is a comfortable target for a first family book.

Write a rough contents list before you gather anything. Something like: title page, a short introduction explaining who made this and why, a family tree spread, chapters by branch or decade, a page of photographs with captions, and a short acknowledgements section. This prevents the common problem of having three hundred photographs and no structure to hold them together.

Match the format to your material

Photographs, documents and written memories each behave differently on the page, so plan for all three.

• Photographs: scan at 600dpi for anything smaller than a postcard and 300dpi for larger prints. Crop one edge at a time against a straight edge so faces are not skewed. Reunite people with their names in a caption beneath each image; a photograph without a caption is a puzzle, and once the oldest relatives are gone it becomes an unsolvable one.
• Documents: birth certificates, wartime letters and newspaper cuttings work well at half a page or a full page with a short paragraph explaining what the reader is looking at. Do not shrink a census return to a postage stamp to save space; nobody will read it.
• Written memories: set these in a clean serif typeface at 11 or 12 point with generous line spacing. Keep individual memories to one or two pages. A single paragraph about a grandmother's kitchen will be remembered longer than six pages of dates.

Leave a wide margin at the inside edge of every page; this is called the gutter, and without it text disappears into the binding. Keep photographs and text at least 15mm away from the trimmed edges.

Compare your printing options

You have three realistic routes, and the right one depends on how many copies you need and how many relatives will actually pay postage.

• Local digital short run. A high-street copy shop or small local printer can produce fifty A4 colour copies in about a week. Quality is good, per-copy cost is sensible, and you can collect them yourself. Best for fifty to a hundred copies.
• Online print-on-demand. No minimum order, so you can buy ten copies or a hundred over time. The per-copy price is higher and postage adds up, but you avoid storing boxes in the spare room and you never print a book nobody wants.
• Community or society printing. Local history societies and print co-operatives often offer friendly rates for small runs and will advise on paper weights. Slower, but the guidance is usually excellent.

Ask each printer for a single proof copy before committing to the full run. Check the photographs in daylight, check that no text has been clipped at the edges, and check that the pages turn without cracking. One proof saves a great deal of disappointment.

Set a realistic budget

Write the numbers down before you fall in love with an expensive hardback. For a typical fifty-copy run of a sixty-four page A4 colour paperback, expect something like this:

• Scanning and image tidying: nothing if you do it yourself, or a few hours of a local designer's time.
• Layout and typesetting: free with a word processor or a simple desktop publishing package; paid help costs more but saves months.
• Printing: roughly £8 to £14 per copy for a decent short run, so £400 to £700 for fifty copies.
• Proof copy: £10 to £25 including postage.
• Packaging and postage: £3 to £5 per relative by second-class post, more for anything over 2kg.
• Contingency: add ten per cent for a reprint of one or two pages, or for relatives who ask for a second copy.

A sensible total sits between £600 and £950 for fifty copies delivered to family doors. If that feels steep, reduce the page count, print in black and white with a colour photograph section in the middle, or drop to thirty copies and offer a digital PDF to the rest.

Gather addresses and orders early

Start a simple spreadsheet before the book is finished, not after. Include columns for name, postal address, email, number of copies wanted, whether they have paid, and a date posted. Ask relatives directly, with a firm deadline, and confirm every address by reply; do not trust the address you used in 2014. Expect the count to grow once people hear the book exists, so leave room in the run for five spare copies.

Weight matters for postage. A sixty-four page A4 paperback with a card cover often weighs around 300g, which can go as a large letter; heavier books become small parcels and cost more. Package each copy in a padded envelope or a stiffened board envelope so corners survive the journey, and tuck a short handwritten note inside the front cover. That note, not the printing, is what relatives will keep.

Finishing touches that make it feel like a keepsake

Add a page near the front explaining who compiled the book, when, and where the original photographs are held. Add a short corrections page at the back with your contact details and an invitation to send better versions of any image. Include a family tree spread so readers can find their own place in the story.

You do not need an ISBN unless you intend to sell the book through shops or libraries. For a book that goes to relatives, a clear title page, a date and your name are enough. Keep the design quiet, the captions generous and the tone warm. A family history book succeeds when someone reads it twice, and the simplest formats are the ones people return to.