Manuscript Typing story

John and his wife Maureen were on the move, heading off from their semi in a suburb of Manchester to a retirement cottage in Devon. There seemed so much to do before the movers arrived that John volunteered to clear out the various old boxes filling their attic. Whilst working his way through what seemed like a lot of old rubbish which had been moved from his father George’s house after his death five years before, John rediscovered a trunk full of his father’s old papers. He’d been been meaning to go through them, but had been much too busy with his last few overseas assignments before he retired, advising an international development company.

Amongst some interesting old family photos there was his father’s war diary, full of fascinating stories of his three years as a fighter pilot in the Second World War. It was quite difficult to decipher his father’s spidery handwriting and the old exercise book he’d used had become yellowed with age, but John found the diary a compelling read, full of firsthand accounts of various missions which brought George’s wartime experiences to life. His father had been injured and had lost many friends in the war and had never spoken much about it or about his part in the Battle of Britain, and his son didn’t realise that the diary existed or what an interesting war his father had had.

After John had tried to read the diary he started wondering if it would be possible to get it published, perhaps using the new self-publishing approach he’d read about. He thought his family and the few friends of his father’s who were still alive would enjoy reading the diary, which brought those dramatic wartime days to vivid life. But first he needed to get it typed up and into a computer file.

Browsing around the web he found the WritersServices site and decided to find out whether the diary could be typed up. He followed the instructions to scan some pages, received a quote which seemed quite reasonable, given the difficulty of reading his father’s writing, and went ahead with commissioning the typing service. He sent the diary straight to the typist by registered post, providing postage to get it safely returned to him.

When the finished result was emailed to him, it was an exciting moment, as John realised that the diary really was a fascinating document and that it might have a wider audience than he’d first thought. He decided to submit it to publishers and see if he could find someone to take it on. Given the level of interest in well-written war memoirs, he thought he stood a good chance of finding a publisher. If not, he would go ahead with self-publishing.

WritersServices’ Typing service can deal with handwritten manuscripts, old typescripts produced on typewriters which need re-typing to make them into a computer file, and printed copies where the book cannot be re-published any other way. Getting a handwritten manuscript into this form or typing up an old typescript means that the material can be edited, reworked and submitted for publication, or self-published, so it provides a way of making it accessible for publication.

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Manuscript typing service