Make a Personal Book Yourself, Even If You Cannot Write
"I do not know how to write" is the most common reason people do not make a personal book for someone they love. The good news: making a personal book at Magical Book does not require writing even one full sentence. You answer questions, and we write. But there are a few things worth preparing before you start, and they make the difference between a nice book and one people cry over.
What to prepare before you start
- One clear photo of each person who will be in the book, up to four people. Face toward the camera, good light, no sunglasses.
- Three memories. Not "she was always there for me," but "the time we drove up the coast and the car broke down outside a gas station." A memory with a place, a time, and one small detail is a memory you can write a page from.
- Places and hobbies: the garden, the kitchen, the beach on Saturday morning, chess, knitting. These become the backdrop of the illustrations.
- One sentence for the last page. What would you say to them if you had only one sentence?
How to pick the tone
One of the seven questions is what tone to write in: funny, moving, or somewhere in between. A rule of thumb: for a birthday or a retirement, a funny tone with a moving ending works best. For an anniversary and for parents, moving with one wink. The book is ten pages, so there is room for both.
How to edit the book you receive
Within about a minute you get a cover and ten pages. Read them out loud. Change any sentence that does not sound like you. You can edit any page yourself, ask for a rewrite, or leave a note like "put in that he calls everyone 'buddy'" and we write it accordingly. Three small edits turn a general book into a book only you could have made.
What happens after the edit
We illustrate the cover and two pages for free. If the illustrations look like the person and you like the result, you order the full book: 21 pages in a hardcover. You can see current prices on the create page. If not, you have not paid anything.
Making a personal book from real photos
If you prefer real photos to illustrations, we also have a ten-page personal book where the photos are yours. You make it on the site or in a chat conversation, page by page, with a photo and text for each page, and you see the whole book before you pay. Start it here.
And for the illustrated book, the one written from your memories: start here.
Questions that come up while making a personal book
How many memories do I need? Three. More than that turns the book into a list. If you have ten, pick one funny, one embarrassing, and one moving.
What if my memories are "not interesting enough"? The best memories in our books are the small ones: the morning coffee, the line that keeps coming back, the drive home. You do not need a big story, you need a real detail.
Can I make a personal book about myself? Yes. People make a book about the year they just had, about a journey, or about their own retirement. "Just you" is one of the options when you choose who is in the book.
How long does it take? The answers take a few minutes, the story about a minute, and the editing as long as you like. You can finish everything in one evening.
What happens if I stop in the middle? Your progress in the questionnaire is saved in the browser where you started, and after the book is created, a link to it is sent to you by message and by email. An unpaid book is saved for 21 days.