Life Stories

You include photographs, pictures and your own words and then have it printed on lovely paper, in an A4 hardback cover.

How many times have you looked at boxes of old photographs and thought, “I must get that sorted” and worried that precious memories of who is who will get forgotten?

All too often we let family memories die with our loved ones. But family history is important – just look at the recent surge of people researching their ancestry on the internet.

Take the time to dig out those photos, talk to the family members you still have with you, and capture it all in a Life Story Memory Book.

And while you are at it, write down your stories! Your children and their children will always be grateful that you did. Just put yourself in their shoes and picture looking at a book made by and about a relative of theirs – they would treasure it!

Useful tips for how to create a memoire / autobiography or biography photobook

• Audience - think about who you are creating this book for. This affects your content, tone of voice and whether you write in the first, second or third person, for example: A memoire for the grandchildren: ‘Grandad’s first car. He loved it very much.’ A general memoire: ‘James was extremely proud of his first car.’
• Plan out which memories and life moments you want to include.  It is probably easiest to do this in chronological order. 
• Try and find a photo or picture for each life event. Scan old photos at 600 dpi and also photograph them with a phone app, e.g. Google’s PhotoScan app, and select the better outcome.
• In addition to life moments, you could include what made the person unique and special, including memories and anecdotes from family members, favourite sayings, poems etc.
• You can create an account and share the login details with family members so that the book is a joint effort.
• The minimum book length is 17 double pages of content (34 individual pages), an editable introduction page and the publisher's page. It works well if you include a topic per double page (spread), though it is possible to include a topic per page. You can add up to 6 more spreads.
• The book design follows best practice for the number of words per page, photo layout, graphics and the size of font. You can change the size of the font to include more words, but this is restricted to ensure your lovely copy is still legible.

Top Tips to avoid mistakes: 

Use word or another program with a spellcheck to generate all your text to avoid spelling errors or typos.
Zoom in so you can see all text clearly. You get a better result if you use the + and – buttons on the top left of the screen rather than your keyboard Ctrl + or – 

Some ideas for what to include in The Memory Book

• Parents, birth details, baby photos
• Siblings
• Early years - schools, best friends
• Teenage years - home, key sporting achievements, favourite music 
• Early adulthood - first job, national service, university, key achievements, first car
• Marriage
• Children 
• Holidays
• Work
• Pets, hobbies and sports teams supported
• Later life - retirement
• Grandchildren
• Miscellaneous - favourite poems, food, books, music. Include input from family members

What our customers say:

“I was absolutely amazed with this company, we was able to make a life story book for my daughter Ariya, from birth up until now, personalise it, change the layout, add pictures, write personal quotes, it’s really fab. Also you can make any book you choose, recipes or even a wedding album. I would highly recommend this company.” Jodie

“The book arrived really quickly and looks brilliant; seems good quality and the photos have printed beautifully. The software to design it was really easy to use and I love the fact that it looks like a family tree kind of as you go through. Overall the process was easy and the book was reasonably priced and great quality. Would 100% recommend and use again!” Chloe

“Great site for creating a family history book. I was able to combine stories, facts, photos, certificates and the all-important tree itself. I was struggling to find a platform which was easy to use and which enabled me to do text, photos and diagrams. This site worked a treat and I was very pleased with the book. Nice thick covers which will protect the history for generations. One tip, if your photos are old and grainy don’t try to enlarge them - leave them the original size.” David