{"id":9627,"date":"2024-10-10T06:10:23","date_gmt":"2024-10-10T06:10:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qinprinting.com\/blog\/?p=9627"},"modified":"2026-01-08T16:20:37","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T08:20:37","slug":"how-to-write-and-self-publish-a-nostalgia-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.qinprinting.com\/blog\/how-to-write-and-self-publish-a-nostalgia-book\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Write and Self-Publish a Nostalgia Book"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Step-by-step instructions for writing and publishing nostalgia<\/p>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Book Printed by QinPrinting<\/a><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\"God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December\"<\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
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J. M. Barrie<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
author of Peter Pan<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Memories\u200a\u2014\u200aand money\u200a\u2014\u200aare made of this<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Do you remember the good old days? Back in your youth, when the summers were longer, we had the best music and fashions, and life was so much sweeter, despite the world’s problems? Can you conjure up those glory days gone by, and set them down in emotion-provoking, elegant, or humorous prose?<\/p>

If you can write in a way that give the people “roses in December,” you stand a good chance of selling your self-published nostalgia<\/strong> book <\/strong>to eager readers keen to indulge memories of the past, insights into the present, and hopes for the future. Nostalgia never goes out of style. As every new generation grows up and transitions into middle age, it looks back fondly on its youth.<\/p>

Whether you were young in the 50s and 60s, the 70s, the 80s, or the 90s, you’ll find magazines, websites, blogs, TV and radio channels, social media groups, clubs, associations and societies\u200a\u2014\u200amany of which have newsletters to which you can sign up to get more insight into this lucrative market\u200a\u2014\u200adedicated to nostalgia for the lifestyle, music, fashion, language, personalities, and atmosphere of those times. All of these are worth checking out and reading if you mean to write and self-publish a nostalgia book. They’ll give you a good idea of the kind of writing that the market supports and the topics and style that readers love\u2014and for which they are prepared to pay. Aside from hunting down and reading at least a dozen or so nostalgia books in your public library, on your e-reader, or from your local indie bookstore, you can also get lots of useful insights from popular nostalgia magazines. You could start with Reminisce<\/em><\/a>, or The Good Old Days<\/em><\/a> in the USA, and Best of British<\/em><\/a>, The People’s Friend<\/em><\/a>, The Oldie<\/em><\/a>, or This England<\/em><\/a> in the UK.<\/p>

There are many more, several specializing in nostalgia, and others more general in scope. You may even find an inspiring article in one of them\u2014or several inspiring articles in several of them!\u2014that spark ideas and memories of your own that would make the perfect departure point for a successful series of self-published nostalgia books. The first step to creating saleable material is always to research the market thoroughly. So, hit the library, fill your Kindle, browse the bookstores, and raid the newsstands. There’s no reason research shouldn’t be fun!<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Nostalgia is not only for the older crowd<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Modern life zips along at a speed that would have left our parents dizzy, not to mention our ancestors of 100 years ago or more. Every generation reaches a point where the political uncertainties, cultural changes, and social and economic upheavals of the day arouse a sense of anxiety. Often that feeling is coupled to a desire to go back to a period in which we felt more secure.<\/p>

The irony is that people felt this same nostalgia for the past as keenly in times gone by as they do now. As far back as the 14th century, Geoffroi de la Tour Landry<\/a>, a knight of France, penned the lines:<\/p>

“Things aren’t what they used to be
How I long for the old times again!”<\/p>

And in the early Victorian period in Britain\u200a\u2014\u200aa time of rapid technological and social change similar to our own\u200a\u2014\u200awriters and artists such as Dickens, Hardy, Browning, Tennyson, and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, satisfied the yearning for a bygone age of certainty and deep human values in their romantic novels, poetry and painting.<\/p>

Nostalgia stories have a strong appeal for older people as they look back at their lost youth through their proverbial “rose-tinted spectacles.” But nostalgia books are not only for the older generation. A thirty-something can just as well enjoy reminiscing about her teen years, and teens may read with interest about what life was like for their parents and grandparents.<\/p>

A powerful way to give any self-published nostalgia book appeal which spans the generations is to use the “compare and contrast” technique. So, if you want to write about your first date, you might refer to the way we used to date back then\u200a\u2014\u200awhenever that may have been\u200a\u2014\u200aand now. Perhaps you had to wait to ask a girl out to a dance, chaperoned under the watchful eyes of family or teachers, whereas now, young people swipe their smartphone screens in search of a potential partner and maybe “meet” for the first time via WhatsApp, Face Time, Skype, or Zoom, for example. You might lament those changes, or take the opposite view that young people are freed from the oppressive restrictions of your youth. That’s just one example, but whatever you write about, it’s worth thinking about the “then-and-now” approach.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Nostalgia books must have broad appeal<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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But there’s much more to the nostalgia story than mere sentimental longing. Sentimental fantasies are, in fact, a hard sell. Readers want a combination of a genuine feeling for past times and thorough research and historical accuracy. The simple truth is that no-one is likely to be interested in\u200a\u2014\u200aand still less pay for\u200a\u2014\u200athe personal reverie of an unknown Joe whose recollections may not be much different from anyone else’s.<\/p>

Nostalgia books, then, must have broad appeal. So, even memories of your personal experience must be treated so that they connect with universal needs\u200a\u2014\u200ahealth, love, security, belonging, accomplishment, and recognition, for example\u200a\u2014\u200aand trigger emotion-filled memories in the reader. The response you should inspire is, “Ah yes, that reminds me of when\u2026” A good nostalgia book never really focuses on the author, but always on the emotional experience and memories that the author seeks to evoke in the reader.<\/p>

When planning a nostalgia book, think first about the universal theme which you will express through the lens of your personal experience and memories. Ask yourself, “Will the story I tell be recognized by the reader, triggering fond memories from their own past?” You can begin with any of the “universal themes” mentioned earlier, then zoom in on a life-stage experience that most people go through. Here are just a few examples:<\/p>