Create and Sell Town History DVDs

Do you like to travel and meet interesting people? Are you handy with a video camera? Do you have video editing and filming skills or you know someone else who does? Are you a savvy film director at heart? Do you like to do research on people and places in history? Then you are the perfect person to create a series of Town History DVDs!

Many people with glowing town pride would enjoy watching a video featuring their town and their own local folk heroes. This product will sell well to both locals and tourists alike.

Reproducing DVDs is very inexpensive and once you have completed the historic film and created your first DVD, you could sell each one for a small profit on every sale.

You can obtain most of the information and images about your chosen town from libraries and museums.  All towns and cities have libraries, and most also have some sort of museum featuring photos and stories from the past, explaining the history of their locality.

And that makes it very easy for you to include still shots from the many photographs relating to your town available local libraries and museums.  Also take careful notes of the stories that are shown there, so that you can do a comprehensive narration later.

Pick the brain of the museum curator. Prepare questions ahead of time to ask people with stories to tell, so you do not overlook any facet of their story. Almost certainly your local librarian will also be more than willing to relate many hours of anecdotes and tall tales about the area.

You need to find out, for example, was anyone famous born in the town? Perhaps someone of interest moved there or lived short term or long term in the town. Have there been books published about the city or town? In most cases, even the smallest town museums will have the history in some sort of printed form, even if it is just a pamphlet or brochure. Usually they will also have genealogy books about the more famous or wealthy families living or working in the town over the centuries. Also, be sure to take advantage of back issues of newspapers that are housed there. Use all the resources available to you to find out the stories that happened in your target town.

Be sure to spend some time in the town, walking around and talking to older people who are almost always happy to relate their memories of people and places from years gone by.

Be sure to make place in your film for older houses and buildings that have stood for many years to let people see where interesting things happened in the past, and to show how buildings have changed appearance over the years. Show viewers maps of the land before it was settled and in more current times. Show your viewers the beautiful views available to a visitor to this area. Are there scenic rivers or lakes? Maybe there are valleys of lush fields of grains or other agricultural interest?

Country fairs and street fairs are perfect places to feature your selection of local town history DVDs, since people visit these fairs from all around and both live and work in local areas whose history will interest them. In addition, most town museums and libraries will want a copy to add to their reference library. The schools in the town might also be interested in having a copy to educate their students on their local history. You can also advertise your DVD in local chambers of congress, town halls and community centres. Online sell via places like eBay, Amazon, and from your own web site or blog.