The Life Story

Your parent's story, told in their own voice. Finished in six weeks.

Six conversations on their phone. A story you can read, with the recording behind every quote and every fact. A hardcover on the shelf. If it doesn't sound like them, your money back.

Their life, in chapters they name themselves: the first conversation asks for the story they always tell, then where the breaks in their life fall. The rest follow their map, not a questionnaire.

Start with a conversation Tell us who it's for. A person replies, not a form.

6conversations, once a week

Chapter 1after the first conversation

1hardcover, delivered

A finished Told hardcover open on a table: a chapter called The Footscray Years, a family photograph, a pulled quote with a small code beside it labelled Hear Bill say it, and a phone showing the same quote with a play button

Why it usually doesn't happen

Two things stop families from ever doing this

It never gets finished

The memoir kit arrives. The first few questions get answered. By week six it's in a drawer, and everyone means to get back to it. Then the window closes.

It doesn't sound like them

The answers go through a machine and come out smooth. The family reads it and thinks: that's lovely, but Mom doesn't talk like that.

Told is built to remove both. It runs the conversations so nobody has to nag anyone, and it builds the story from their actual words, with the recording behind every quote and every fact, so you can check that it's them.

How it works

Six conversations. About six weeks. Fifteen minutes a week from you, and an hour at the end.

Set it up in ten minutes

Tell us who the story is about, the names and places they're likely to mention, and who in the family should be able to hear it. We send a code to their phone. Someone sets it up with them once, in person.

They talk

The first conversation asks for the story they always tell, then for the chapters of their life as they see them, and reads the list back until they say it's right. After that the app walks their chapters in their order, one question at a time, out loud and in big type, with one big button. They answer for as long as they like. Twenty to thirty minutes, once a week, six times. It knows when a chapter has enough in it and when to ask for the scene behind something they just said.

You check the names

After each conversation you get a short list of names and places to confirm, each with a few seconds of them saying it. About fifteen minutes. Once the first list is done, the first chapter is on the story page as a preview, so you can see what you're getting before the second conversation.

Read it. Hear it.

The story arrives as chapters, built from their own words with short connecting sentences. Tap any quote or any fact and hear the recording it came from. If they said "I think it was 1968", that is what the story says. Anything we can't tie to the recording is flagged for a person to look at, never smoothed over.

The book

Before we print, you check the names, dates and who's who against the recordings. That's the hour. When you say the story is them, we print it: a hardcover, with a small code beside each quote that plays their voice. Nothing is printed until you've read it and said yes.

The offer

Everything, for one price. Nothing to subscribe to.

The Life Story: six conversations, six weeks, one book

For scale: a professional ghostwriter charges $18,000 to $50,000 for a memoir and takes months. The memoir subscription services charge $69 to $199 a year. This is $249, once, and it's finished in six weeks.

$249 one storyteller, once. US dollars.

Six guided conversations on their own phone, run by the app, not by you
The story page for the whole family, with the recording behind every quote and every fact, five years included
Every recording kept in full and lossless, not just the parts that made the book
The archive: recordings, transcripts and story in one download that works without us
One hardcover, delivered to your door, with the family's photos printed where they belong
The print-ready file, yours, so more copies can be printed anywhere, any time
More copies, hardcover or paperback, priced when you order
The That's Them guarantee, below

Start with a conversation Ten families in the first edition. A person reads every story before it's printed, and ten is what one person can do properly. There's a window, and nobody knows how long it is.

The That's Them guarantee

If you don't say "that's them", your money back.

You read the finished story before we print a single page. If it isn't them, tell us, and we refund you in full. You keep every recording and every transcript, because they're theirs, not ours.

Full terms at the foot of the page.

Who it's for

Anyone with a window that might close

Told isn't only for the very old. A parent with a diagnosis. A grandmother who tells the same three stories every Christmas that nobody has ever written down. A father who never talks about his own parents unless someone asks properly. Anyone whose story is about to go with them.

Every reason this usually fails

And what we do about each one

They won't do it

The app asks, they answer, and nobody in the family has to nag. One question, one button, big type. Someone sets it up with them once, in person.

They forget

The app sets a reminder on their phone for the next conversation. Six conversations, about a week apart, and it ends. Nothing runs for a year.

They ramble

Good. The app asks for the scene behind the thing they just mentioned, and nothing they say is thrown away. What doesn't fit a chapter goes in its own section at the end.

There's something they don't want to talk about

They say so and the app moves on. It's never asked again. The hard parts come last, once they're used to it, and they can stop any time.

They say something private

They decide who can hear it, from their phone, and can change their mind. They can leave anything out, and they can delete everything. The family manages the story within what they've allowed, not beyond it. They also choose what happens to it after they're gone.

Something happens to them halfway

Everything recorded so far is kept, in full, within what they allowed. We build the story from what exists, and the book can still be printed.

It sounds like a machine wrote it

It's assembled from their words. The connecting sentences are short and plain, every quote and every fact points to the recording it came from, and anything we can't tie to the recording is flagged for a person. You check the names, dates and who's who against the audio before we print. We don't produce polished narratives, because polish is where people stop sounding like themselves.

We lose it

Every recording is kept lossless and backed up, and you can download all of it at any time; the download works without us. The story page is included for five years; after that, a small yearly fee, or simply keep your copy.

Can we add photos?

Yes. Anyone in the family can add photos on the story page and say which chapter each belongs to, with a caption. They're printed where they belong. Captions are marked as the family's words, so the story stays theirs.

Can six conversations hold a whole life?

No, and we don't pretend they can. What you get is a portrait: the shape of their life in the chapters they chose, the scenes told properly, their people, their sayings, and what they wanted kept. The book says which chapters were covered and lists the ones left open at the back, so nobody wonders. Shorter packages, one story about their parents, one trip, one lesson, come later.