A book of your parent's life, in their own voice, while there's still time to capture it.

We sit with your mother, father, grandparent or relative over several conversations, listen carefully, and turn what they tell us into a printed book that stays in the family.

About two months, start to finish.

Start a conversation

There are conversations you've been meaning to have with your parents or grandparents for years. The stories about how they met. What it was like growing up in the country they grew up in. What they did in the war, or before children, or before whatever shaped the family. The thinking behind decisions you only ever saw the outcome of. You keep meaning to sit down with a notepad or a phone recorder, and you don't, because life is busy and there will always be next month.

Until, at some point, there isn't a next month, or memory gets less reliable, and the stories quietly stop being available.

Legacy Stories exists for that.

What it is

A service for families who want to capture one person's life properly, while there is still time. We do the listening and the writing, and we deliver a real printed hardcover book of their life, in their own voice, that stays in the family.

You don't need to be a writer, conduct the interviews yourself, or fit the project around your work and family. We do all of that. You and the rest of the family decide what goes in, and what stays out.

What you actually walk away with

By the end of the project:

  • A printed hardcover book of one person's life, around 100 to 150 pages, in their own voice, designed and typeset properly. Same finish as any quality hardback you'd buy in a bookshop.
  • Photos and family documents woven into the right chapters, scanned, treated for print, and captioned where useful.
  • Several physical copies posted to you (the exact number depends on the package), for distribution across the family.
  • A digital version (PDF) the family can keep and reprint from in the future.
  • Optionally, publication on Amazon as a paperback if you want to make the book available more widely. Most families keep it private to themselves; the option is there if you want it.

The book belongs to the family. You own the rights. You decide who sees it.

How it works

A first call with you (the family member organising this), thirty minutes, to scope the project and understand what matters.

Four to eight conversations with the subject of the book, ninety minutes each, across six to eight weeks. In person where possible, by video where not. The pace is set by the subject, not by us. Some sessions are full of energy and storytelling. Others are quieter and reflective, and sometimes get cut short because the day isn't right. All of that is normal.

Family members can submit prompts, questions, photos and documents at any point during the project. Often the strongest material comes from a daughter or a grandchild flagging something they always wondered about and passing the question along.

Then we do the writing, the structuring, the photo treatment, the design and the printing. You see drafts at agreed milestones, raise anything that feels off, and sign off on the final version.

The finished books arrive at your door about two months after the first conversation.

What changes for your family

Two outcomes, both of them worth talking about.

The obvious one is the finished book itself: an artefact the family keeps, shares with children and grandchildren, and that grandchildren can pick up in twenty years and know who their grandparent actually was, not from family lore but from the source.

The less obvious one is the change in the relationship that happens during the months of conversations. Someone listening properly to your parent for several hours, week after week, is a rare experience for both of you. Two months later the book arrives, but the conversations were already worth something on their own.

About me

I'm Stéphane. SPV Creative Press is the small publishing outfit behind Legacy Stories.

I started self-publishing a few years ago, first with my daughter Sophie, who wrote a small children's book at seven called The Unicorn Who Lost Her Horn. We self-published it together on Amazon as an experiment, and it's now the first in a small series called Forest of Friends. I've also self-published the I Want To Know Now series of short historical books on Amazon, three titles so far. So the end-to-end pipeline I'd be running for your family is one I have already run for myself, several times over, on real books.

What's different about Legacy Stories from the rest of what SPV does is that this work isn't built to drive a business or to build an author's profile. The audience is just the family. That changes how the conversations go, how the pacing works, and how the finished book reads. It's slower, gentler, and more careful work, and it's the work I most look forward to doing.

A few things worth knowing

What if my parent is reluctant.

Most are, in the first conversation. Almost no one over seventy thinks their own life is interesting enough to put in a book. By the second or third session that resistance has usually softened, because the experience of being listened to properly is rare at any age, and especially at this stage of life. It becomes its own reason to continue.

What if their memory is patchy.

We adapt the work to the subject. With memory issues, conversations are shorter, sessions more frequent, and we lean more heavily on family-provided prompts, old letters, photographs and other reference materials. The book reflects what the subject still has, told well, with the gaps acknowledged rather than papered over.

What if they say something difficult or sensitive.

Family stories often contain material not everyone wants on the page. Anything sensitive that surfaces in interview is flagged with you, the family contact, before it goes into any draft. Nothing is published anywhere without explicit sign-off from you and from the subject.

What if they pass before the book is finished.

It does happen. If it does, we work with the family to complete the book in the spirit the subject would have wanted, based on the material we have. You won't be left with a half-finished project.

Who actually reads the finished book.

That is entirely your decision. Most families distribute copies among children and grandchildren and keep one for themselves. Some give a copy to close friends or to a local history society. Some keep it private to the immediate family. We don't publish anywhere outside the family unless you specifically ask us to.

Investment

Package: from £997 - Final cost once scope is confirmed.

How to start

Book a thirty-minute call to talk it through. We use the call to understand who the book is for, who the subject is, where things stand health-wise and time-wise, and whether the project is the right shape for your family.

If it is, we agree a timeline and a scope, and we start the first conversation within a few weeks.

Book a call