How to make a life story book for a parent or grandparent
A life story book is a parent’s or grandparent’s memories, written in their own voice and printed as a real book. You interview them with ChatGPT’s help, turn the answers into chapters, and Inkbind prints them as an 8.5-inch square hardcover for $55 or a softcover for $45, shipping included. It arrives in about two weeks.
The stories you’ve heard a hundred times at dinner are the ones that disappear first. You don’t need to be a writer to keep them.
Let ChatGPT do the interviewing
Sit down with your mom, dad or grandparent, or take notes on the phone, and ask ChatGPT to lead:
“Interview my grandmother about her childhood in Ohio. Ask one question at a time, follow up on details, and keep her words.”
Type or dictate the answers. After an hour you’ll have more material than you expect. Questions that tend to open people up:
- What did the kitchen in the house you grew up in smell like?
- What was your first job, and what did you buy with the first paycheck?
- How did you meet Grandpa, and what did you think of him at first?
- What happened the year everything changed?
Turn the answers into chapters
Ask for one chapter at a time, in the first person, in their voice: “Write chapter 3, the years at the bakery, using only what she told me. Don’t add anything.” Then read it to them and fix what’s wrong. They’ll correct dates and add stories you’d never have asked about.
Keep chapters short, four to eight pages each, and put them in order of time: childhood, first jobs, marriage, children, the later years. If two relatives remember the same story differently, keep both versions. Families enjoy reading the disagreement.
Add photos
Scan or photograph old pictures and add one at the start of each chapter. Old prints scanned at 600 dpi are sharp enough to print at full page width. Write a line under each one with who is in it and the year, while there’s still someone who knows.
Print the memoir as a hardcover
Ask Inkbind to make the memoir into a book in the same chat, or paste the chapters on our start page. Each chapter starts on its own page, and you page through the whole book before you pay. A hardcover is $55 with shipping, and extra copies for siblings are $32 each. If a copy arrives damaged, we reprint it for free.
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 grandparent memory book can go the other way, too
Some families write the book for the grandparents instead, with one short chapter per grandchild about what they remember. It’s a present that gets reread every Christmas.