My Life in a Book
Last year I bought my mum a year subscription to My Life in a Book.
I have been very conscious for a while that none of us are getting any younger. When someone passes away there are a whole bunch of stories and information that will be lost and potentially never know. I had been pondering an idea to capture family stories and played around with a few ideas.
I then came across My Life in a Book. Whilst not perfect it was good enough for what I wanted and provided an easy way for me to capture some of the stories from my mum’s life.
When you subscribe you can also purchase copies of the book that will produced at the end. I bought one for my parents, one for my brother and one for me. Over the course of the year my mum received an email each week with a question to answer by replying to the email. I also received a copy of the question so I could see what was being asked.
This was a major selling point for me as it is a very simple way for someone to answer the questions without the need to login to a website, navigate to the question etc. If they can reply to an email they can use this system.
It is also possible to review the questions, add any specific questions and reorder them. There is definitely a focus on childhood in the first lot of questions and in my view it is worth going in and making sure that the upcoming questions cover subjects that you are interested in.
My mum had a health issue during the year so was unable to answer questions for a month or two. We contacted them and they extended the period for an extra three months which was really appreciated.
At the end you can use their website to edit the answers, reorder them and get them ready for publication. This is the point where it is well worth taking the time to make sure it is completely as you want it.
As for the books, they are a decent quality small hardback book with a colour cover (you can design this to include a photo) that reminds me of Ladybird books of the past.
It was well worth doing and it achieved it’s main aim as I now know a whole lot more about my mum and her life.
If you want a way to capture family stories in an easy way then I would thoroughly recommend it.
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