Books & Blogs: How to Scrapbook Your Personal Heritage

Each Thursday I review a book or blog related to scrapbooking.

The problem with e-books is that you can’t just pick it up off the shelf and flip through it before purchasing to see if it is something you might actually want. Yes, most e-books offer some sort of preview, but that’s not the same as flipping through the book. The reason I mention this is because I am beginning to feel a bit mislead by the titles of e-books in the scrapbook industry and outside the scrapbook industry. This especially concerns me as I am in the midst of writing a couple of e-books. The title promises one thing and the book delivers something else or is only sort of related to the title. Of course, this is one reason I write this series. I want to help you decide what is worth your time and money and what is not.

Take this week’s e-book:

Now, if you go to the book’s sale page, the description does make it clear that the book is about scrapbooking your childhood, but that is not all that I find slightly unclear. The subtitle is “36 Vintage Page Ideas and Fun Challenges” and the numbers literally mean this. The e-book contains 24 page ideas and 12 challenges. A person reading the subtitle, however, might believe that there are 36 challenges with a page idea for each challenge. Again, if you go the main sales’ page, you do see that the book only contains 12 challenges.

I think my issue is that I do like the content in these e-books from Ella, but when most people have a limited budget, I want to share with you things that give you a lot of bang for your buck. Ella’s publications are inexpensive, but I’m left wanting more from each e-book and not in the kind of way that makes me want to surf back over to their site to buy more e-books. I can’t quite put my finger on what is missing just yet…any ideas?

On the other hand, having only 12 challenges makes beginning to scrapbook your own childhood, less intimidating. If you did one challenge a week, in three months you would have recorded 12 stories from your childhood! And I’m beginning to notice what is missing…online classes or a community based around these e-books. Perhaps this is something in the works?

Now, one big advantage of these e-books is that I can read them offline (unlike a blog) and they are not cluttered with advertising (like a magazine). I especially enjoy their portability since they are digital (even though I also print mine out).

Do you read e-books? Do you read Ella publications? Am I missing something or do others have similar concerns? Comment below or join the conversation on facebook or twitter.

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Publishers and Authors
If you are a publisher or an author and would like me to review your scrapbooking-related book or blog, please email me at stephaniemedleyrath at gmail dot com.
Stephanie