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A hand holding an open book, read in the sun.

A book of your life, made out of your own answers. Nobody rewrites a word of it.

Start a bookRead the sample

$49, one payment. The first three questions are free, and twenty-one are enough for a whole book.

He was a quiet man but he sang.

Ruth Ellen Mercer

A woman reading an open book, seen from above.

The sample book

Pages from “A life, word for word”, by Ruth Ellen Mercer, born 1946 in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania. Ruth is an invented narrator. Everything else on these pages is real: the typesetting, the contents page built from her own titles, and the A5 size ready to print.

Read the whole book

Word for word

What you say is what gets printed, exactly as you said it. Nobody rewrites your sentences or makes anything up for you.

Where we use AI, and where we don’t

The eight chapters

  1. IWhere I come from
  2. IIChildhood
  3. IIIGrowing up
  4. IVLoveoptional
  5. VWorkoptional
  6. VIThe family I madeoptional
  7. VIIPlaces
  8. VIIIWhat I've learned
The pages of a book fanning open in someone’s hands.

Two covers

Two covers, lettering only: your name as large as the title of a novel, or the title itself as the picture. You choose at the end, when the book already exists, and you can change your mind afterwards.

  • a life told
    word for word    Ruth Ellen Mercer1946h
    The Name · Sand
  • a life toldWORDforWORDRuth Ellen Mercer1946h
    Word for Word · Off-white
  • a life told
    word for word    Ruth Ellen Mercer1946h
    The Name · Tobacco

Price

$49

One payment. Try it first: answer three questions free and see your book begin. Nothing to cancel, nothing renews.

In the EU and the UK the price includes VAT. In the US, sales tax is added where your state applies it. You see the total before you pay.

What's included

  • Your book as a PDF, A5, ready to print wherever you like.
  • No limit on how many questions you answer.
  • No subscription and no expiry date: the file is yours for good.

What this is

You answer questions about your life, writing or speaking, at whatever pace suits you. What you said is set into a book — A5, typeset, with its chapters and its contents page — and you download it as a PDF and print it anywhere. Twenty-one questions are enough for a whole book, and they fit in an afternoon if you feel like it.

How it works

  1. You answer, one at a time

    One question whenever you feel like it. Speaking or writing. It saves itself, and you can stop and carry on another day.

  2. You watch your book grow

    From the first answer there is already a book, typeset and with its contents page. You can read all of it whenever you like.

  3. You take it with you

    Download the PDF and print it wherever you like, as many times as you like. It’s yours.

Word for word

We don’t write in your voice. No machine drafts, rewrites or polishes your answers: they only transcribe what you say and take a title from your own words. We don’t train models on what you tell us either.

Where we use AI, and where we don’t

No small print

  • One payment, no renewal
  • The file is yours, for good
  • What you said is what’s printed

The gift

It can be given: you buy a code, the other person answers, and the buyer never sees a word of the book.

Start answering →

It saves itself. You can answer one question today and carry on in March.

Read the sample