Thinking of compiling a book

[indiegirl]

I want to compile a book of homebirth birthstories.

How will I get people to submit?
What legal issues do I need to think about?
Is there a market for such thing?
Any other advice?

Jesse

[applejuice]

Every birth is different. You can just collect stories from here, but the stories you use the person would have to I suppose sign a waiver to allow you to use THEIR story.

I suppose there is a market for this - look at the success of Ina Mae Gaskin's Spiritual Midwifery which is nearly 30 years old.

Also you can solicit for stories from here, Mothering Magazine, Parent Magazine, and any local newspaper you have.

You would need a focus for your book.

Depending on the kind of stories you ask for and the kind that you actually get, you may have to change your focus, or readjust your goal.

I worked w/ a woman who began a master's thesis on the effect of the hospital birth on the mother/child bonding process and postpartum depression. Her professors were mostly men, so she was not taken seriously.

This was at Harvard thirty yrs ago.

[WriterMama]

Jesse,
Last year, I was going to submit mine to an editor that was doing something similar (saw her call for submissions in Poets and Writers magazine). I'm sorry I no longer have her website to give you an idea of what her focus was, but as I recall, she wanted all kinds of birth stories and she asked the authors to give the nitty-gritty details and mince no words when it came to everything. So, my first thought is to decide what your focus is. Would you accept only straightforward non-fiction or could it be creative non-fiction (poetry, etc.)? Would they be unassisted or mw-attended or both?
Besides getting permission in writing from everyone, you'll have to decide how to publish it. If you find a publisher willing, that's great, but with publications such as these (with smaller audiences), you may want to self-publish. That unfortunately means that you will have to front some/most/all of the money and that you will/may have to do all of your own marketing.