A grandparent memory book that actually gets finished
A grandparent memory book is a book of a grandparent’s stories, kept in their own words. With Inkbind you interview them with ChatGPT’s help and print the result as an 8.5-inch square hardcover for $55 or a softcover for $45, shipping included, in 10–18 business days.
Most of what you’ll find under this name is a fill-in journal, a hardcover with a prompt on each page and blank lines underneath. You give it to Grandma, she means to get to it, and two years later it sits on a shelf with the first eleven pages done. That isn’t her fault. Writing a memoir alone, by hand, is a lot to ask of anyone.
Interview them instead
Talking is easier than writing. Sit with your grandparent, or call them, and let ChatGPT come up with the questions while you type or dictate the answers:
“Interview my grandfather about his life. He grew up on a farm in Iowa in the 1950s and drove a milk truck before he met my grandmother. Ask one question at a time, follow up on names and places, and keep his words.”
An hour of talking often gets further than a year of the journal. Spread it over a few visits. People remember more the second time, once the first conversation has shaken things loose.
Questions that get grandparents talking
- What did your street look like when you were ten?
- Who was the strictest person in your family, and were they right?
- What did you do on your first date with Grandma?
- What job did you have that nobody in the family knows about?
- What do you want your great-grandchildren to know?
Keep their words
Ask ChatGPT for one chapter at a time, in the first person, using only what they said. Tell it not to smooth out the way they talk. “We had nothing, and we didn’t know it” should stay exactly like that. Then read each chapter back to them. They’ll fix a date, remember a name and add a story you didn’t know to ask about.
Add photos
Old photos make the book. Photograph the prints in daylight and upload them in the editor on our site, one at the start of each chapter, with a caption saying who is in it and what year. You can also ask ChatGPT for pictures of things nobody photographed, like the farmhouse as he describes it. Inkbind tells you if a picture is too small to print sharply.
Print a finished book
Ask Inkbind for the book in the same ChatGPT conversation, or paste the chapters on our start page. In the chat you can change the title and the dedication. You edit pictures and text in the editor on our site. The book has 32 pages or more, each chapter starts on its own page, and you see every page before you pay by card on our site through Stripe.
A hardcover is $55 and a softcover $45, shipping included. Lulu prints it close to the address you enter, so a copy can go straight to the grandparents. Extra copies to the same address are $32 for a hardcover and $25 for a softcover, so you can order one per household and hand them out at the next family dinner. If a copy arrives damaged, email us a photo within 30 days of delivery and we reprint it for free. We delete the files 90 days after delivery, so order extra copies before then.
For a longer book with a chapter for every decade, see our guide to making a life story book.
When to give it
Printing and standard delivery take 10–18 business days. For Christmas, order by December 1 with standard shipping or by December 10 with express. A birthday or an anniversary works just as well, and so does no occasion at all.