Family History & Legacy

Open questions about scenes, not facts. “What did your kitchen smell like?” produces more than “Where did you grow up?” Ask about first jobs, how they met their spouse, the hardest year, what they were wrong about, and what they want the grandchildren to know. Record everything — the digressions are usually the book.

Three to five months with a ghostwriter, including interviews, drafting and one revision round. Doing it yourself typically takes a year or more, and the failure rate is high — not through lack of will, but because transcription and structuring are genuinely hard work.

Record first, structure later. Voice memos on a phone are enough. An hour of recorded conversation is worth more than a year of intending to write something down, and any competent ghostwriter can work from raw audio. Do the recording this month.

Most families print 15 to 60 copies — enough for immediate family plus a few spares. Short-run printing costs roughly $25–$60 a copy at that volume, which is a rounding error next to the writing cost.