Storyworth reviews and discussion

I've personally enjoyed giving consideration to reflections as the emails come and am very much looking forward to the finished product once concluded. In addition I'd like to mention that I bought this for an aging relative who afterward told me he really didn't want to go to the trouble of answering all the questions. I explained to Storyworth representative and they immediately refunded my purchase. I was very impressed with their responsiveness and their response. HIGHLY RECOMMEND STORYWORTH!

The book I received was faulty with damaged pages. When I complained they said please send photos of the book and the packaging and it will be referred to a manager who might refer it to a printer who might replace the book. Brilliant service...not

For some time, I had contemplated writing a history of my life. I wanted to leave a record of my existence for my kids and grandchildren. I wanted this and I was motivated to do it, but I really didn’t know where to begin…until my daughter gave me the gift of Storyworth! Storyworth presented me with an opportunity to tell my story in a unique and impactful way. Instead of a chronological recitation of events, the weekly Storybook “questions” caused me to focus on topics that allowed me to truly reveal those experiences in my life that shaped me as a person. These were things my kids wanted to know but also things that I wanted them to know…things like my religious beliefs, things like my successes and failures, things like my philosophy of life, things about my work experiences, things about my relationships and the people I love, etc. It was more about the ingredients that made me who I am and not about dates and places. Each week, the stories took me about an hour or two to write. Honestly, I couldn’t wait to get the weekly question on Monday! The questions caused me to be very introspective and I feel that , by writing on these questions, I have grown as an individual. I received my books last week. I ordered the color version ( which I highly recommend!). I purchased four copies for the important people in my life! The book is professionally printed and bound. I am proud of the book of my “Reflections “ that I wrote and that Storybook helped me produced. I feel comforted knowing that I had an opportunity to explain, in my own words, my life’s story.

The program was very easy to use, and the structure, answering one question a week for a year, allowed me to complete my life stories that I otherwise would have never started. I am delighted with the final product, the coloured photos, hard cover and design look better than I expected.

I just received my book from Storyworth and I love it!  It is professionally made, very sturdy, and it even feels good to the touch! I especially love the book design and color options, and also the ability to choose the size and shape of the cover photo.  In December of 2022, our youngest daughter gave me a gift subscription to Storyworth as a Christmas gift. So, for the previous 15 months, I’ve been busy writing and editing, primarily using my blog for the bulk of my content. Storyworth gives you a year and three months to finish writing the book, so I took advantage of the whole allotted time and submitted mine just a couple days before it was due! My book is based on my life story, my family, and my journey of faith. It has 65 chapters and 480 pages, which is the maximum amount of pages allowed. After I finish proofreading my first copy of the book, I’m planning on ordering several copies to give to my kids and grandkids.  If you’ve ever considered writing a book, I recommend Storyworth. They send you interesting questions each week to help spark memories which, combined with a little inspiration, help you put your memories into words. While I primarily used my blog to write my book, I used one of their questions to inspire me to write a story about all of the great cooks in my family.  It’s titled, “What’s Cooking?!”  It’s one of the longest stories in my book, and includes recipes and treasured photos of my grandma, my mom, my sister, my daughters, grandkids, and my mother-in-law. While I love all of my stories in my book, this chapter is very special to me. 

Writing on a weekly routine was a good practice to keep me thinking. I enjoyed a variety of prompts and the freedom to explore a pop up idea. The experience brought to mind some treasured memories.

Sharing your life’s experiences can be enriching. It was for me., My purpose was to give my grandkids an account of my eighty plus years of experience which for the most part was a legacy of love and good fortune.

Storyworth began as a means to tell my stories to my grandchildren. Weekly questions, including some prompts from my daughter, guided the process. I would draft up a story then spend a quiet hour each week to develop the book. I also received technical support from Storyworth when I needed often in the early predawn hours.The result was a beautiful finished product that I’m happy to share with my family. I would have liked to be better prepared up front as nearing the end I felt out of order and took awhile to organize and edit & find photos.Perhaps quarterly tips to organize & edit would help. Kudos to all Storyworth staff for their friendly professional and timely assistance. Along the way I have spoken to many people about the experience which was self reflective , knowing that I’d be able to pass along my stories. Highly recommended for those reasons!

My step-daughter gave a StoryWorth to me for Christmas. I had heard about StoryWorth before from Facebook ads and was very excited to write my own. If the question she picked didn't quite fit for me, then I changed it to work. I love photos, so I added many which helped me to tell the story. I received my first book and it is terrific; the bindings and photos came out great! I hope to start a new book soon!

My Children wanted my ‘stories and tales, adventures and musings’ documented for them and for their children and grandchildren. And my Father, who's now 90, has always said to me that I have lived an interesting enough life and that I should write down my stories. I knew I had ‘stories’, but I didn’t know how I would ever be able to tell them, let alone document them. Thanks to the genius of my Children, who found Storyworth, the Storyworth process was something I found I could buy into. So I wrote my Stories! My Storyworth journey became a commitment every Sunday afternoon for 52 consecutive Sundays through-out 2023. I went to my Laptop and answered the week’s Question - sometimes there was more than one per story. Overall, 52 Stories, with a total of 90 Questions answered. Every question my children asked of me … some I asked of myself ... and more! And then I spent an additional 2 months of effort into 2024 to proof read each story, do minor edits, and then find photographs, and import them – 270 of them! In all, I spent nearly 600 hours on my Storyworth Books, over 14 months – that’s 25 days! And 210,000 words written – an average of just over 4000 words per story. It's a ‘3 Volume’ Storyworth Book Collection, that went to 1,111 pages. Stories of Me – sure, there had to be … it’s My Storyworth! But also Stories of my Wife of 40 years, My Children, My Grandchildren. And Stories of My Parents, their Parents and, indeed, generations of Family down multiple generations, including tracking two family streams – both names in my name – one to the 14th Century, and the other the 803AD … unbelievable. Immensely satisfying! And, of course, Stories of My Youth, my Work Adventures, my Travels, my Experiences, my Interests, my Passions, my Philosophies … and little things as well that you can hardly believe would become such great stories. And, today, I've just received my Storyworth Books, and they are magnificent. Holding them, I have a sense of emotive exhilaration, relief, and also great satisfaction. I’m Proud of myself! I did it! It’s quite an unbelievable sense of achievement – up there with my moments of ‘ultimate peak’, that happen only a few times in your life. Having my completed Storyworth Book Volumes is a 'Mount Everest' moment for me! I look at what I have produced, with Storyworth, and its process as the Guide, and I am blown-away. Storyworth enabled me to not only ‘bring to life’ my stories, but to ensure that, in the beautiful Volumes that comprise my Stories, they are there for all to see … now and for the generations to come. And the photo’s lift the Volumes … people like looking at pictures, so I tried to make the Photos tell stories too! In one of my Stories – Number 52 actually … the last one – I wrote that every-ones Life is bookended by a birth-date and a death-date. On a tombstone, that gap, between birth and death, is often just a ‘dash’. Most people’s lives then, you could say are recorded as that ‘dash’! My ‘dash’ is more than ‘just a dash’ … it’s a 3 Volume Storyworth Book Collection that makes my life meaningful … a full life, well lived. And plenty of living still - maybe a 4th Volume in 10 years or so! Storyworth’s journey was ‘inspiration’ for me! Thank you Storyworth!

M step-daughter gave me Story worth for my 80th birthday, and I have spent the last year joyfully responding to the prompts she sent me each week. When I received the book. I was thrilled and surprised with the quality, and since I received it, my sisters and my children and grandchildren have requested that I buy copies for them. It was a wonderful gift.

I heard about Storyworth too late to help my parents write their stories. However my mother’s youngest sister was willing to write her stories and I could edit the questions to include stories about her growing up years and each sibling. It is one thing to read genealogy lists and quite more to understand the personalities. Since there were adequate pages available I felt I could include photos of all 30 of her paintings and each page of her scrapbook of get well cards received as a child during a 6 month hospitalization as a 7 year old! Looking at the timelines it was obvious why my grandfather had a nervous breakdown. My aunt answered questions for a year and it took me more than another year to compile photos. The font and graphics are very limited but I could create something more artistic and include a photo of it. I would encourage including lots of readers to read the weekly stories and respond to the writer each week. If you know more stories or additional details you can add them as a reader. If more siblings are alive and willing to collaborate it provides more viewpoints. The pages and cover are high quality. The older photos I used were not always high enough quality and required me to print smaller photos in some cases. Once it was sent for print, the book was completed very timely and shipped promptly. My aunt said she just cried when she opened the package, that no one had ever done anything like this for her ever. So thank you storyworth! What a beautiful legacy given to so many families! Em

My book is so good looking and I love it! My only regret was not answering more questions and adding pictures , it’s like someone else is doing all the work for you and I didn’t take advantage of all that was offered! Highly recommend this service!

Several members of my church class recommended StoryWorth to me, and as I been wanting for some time to share my life stories with my 2 college grandsons, my daughter and my wife, this concept was perfect. It forced me into writing a story every week (a very good thing), finding the right photos to fit the story, and at the end of 50 weeks I had exactly what I wanted to leave as my legacy. The book was easy to preview and order, although I would highly encourage purchasing the "in color" option as it's a once-in-a-lifetime gift and should be as high quality as possible. I can now rest easier knowing that no matter what happens, my story has been told and the important people in my life have the book to remember it. Oh, and the book is so professionally printed, I feel like a published author!

I was really happy to receive Story worth as a gift from my daughter. I had never heard of it at the time. It did take me two years to finish. I wanted to give it my all when I had more time. I recently received my two copies in the mail. Very fast shipping. The cover and pages are high quality. I ordered my pictures in color. It looks very nice. One thing I would change is more control over layout and position of pictures. There is a lot of white space. I added my own introduction/ preface and epilogue, which I feel really helps. I do like that you can move the chapters around so book flows better. All in all 4 and 1/2 stars. Great idea for future generations to hopefully read some day.

Storyworth is the perfect gift for your parents or grandparents. Our daughter gave her father and I each a Storyworth. It’s an opportunity to leave your family a legacy book. A place to put all those words of wisdom or lessons we carry around with us everyday of our lives. Your Storyworth will be sweet and funny and maybe a little surprising! It may be Your Story with pictures your family may never have seen before. The people at Storyworth are really helpful if you are unsure or a bit afraid of the process. I deliberately left some blank pages in my book for notes I will add later. I am also giving our daughter a copy with the notes I’ve added. Storyworth is the best way to do what you’ve always wanted to do…leave generations in your family…The Story of You!

Great for gift giving and customer support

I really don't know how Storyworth could get anything less than a 5-star review! From a gift-giving standpoint, it is one of the most thoughtful opportunities to give/receive, especially with aging family members. The website interface is lovely, inviting and user-friendly. The user is able to tailor their notifications as needed, pop in on any weeks missed, and get the point of what they're doing quite quickly. I have a hard time coming up with a con other than I feel that the current prompts available within the platform could be a bit more polished and varied. I found myself rewriting the majority of my dad's as the available queries felt very repetitive and at times less valuable.

Excellent experience! It was amazing that once I received the week's question and started thinking about it and writing about it, so many memories flooded back to me. The questions jogged my memory of so many events in my life...things I have totally forgotten! It truly was an amazing experience. I was given this gift (I call it a project LOL) from my son and I absolutely agreed to do this for my family; but, as it turned out it was a perfect "gift" to myself! Reminiscing and thinking back on your life's experiences is priceless! I would encourage everyone to do this! The website was super easy to understand. I even added a "dedication page" to my book. And the book itself is beautiful! I did add a lot of pictures and I opted for colored pictures. It turned out wonderful! However, one piece of advice would be to check the sizes of your pictures, some of mine came smaller/larger than I would have liked. However, I still totally loved the book! And the membership was actually longer than I expected which gave me plenty of time to proof read, edit and rearrange my stories. Bottom line: I enjoyed the experience immensely! So much so I think I may want to do a sequel!!

Edit: Since originally posting, Storyworth did provide a refund for the unused book credits from our account, and clarified that the book credits can be applied at the time of order to any book purchased. ————- I wish I could give Storyworth a 5-star review but unfortunately when it is all said and done our family found that it falls short in a number of areas. Everything is explained on their website, so they aren’t mis-leading anything, but there are a few things that should be highlighted if you are considering purchasing this. First off, as they advertise, your subscription is only for one year - please consider this may not be an appropriate time length for an elderly family member to complete all the questions, given vacations, time spent doing other things, or a stay in the hospital. We didn’t consider this, and ended up having to pay for a subscription renewal so my Dad could finish his stories, so essentially paid twice! Secondly, the ‘book credit’ that accompanies your subscription is only valid for a book that fits within their specific parameters (limited to certain number of pages and black and white) - again it says this on their website. However, if you have any interest in a coloured copy, or writing a longer book (which you won’t know until the questions are done), you will have to pay full price for each book, they will not offer you any ‘credit’ towards your book purchase. So we ended up paying full price for 4 coloured copies and still have two book credits sitting on their system that are useless to us. In the end, with the original subscription plus having to pay for a renewal, ordering coloured books, and paying for shipping we have paid $614usd to Storyworth, which is very high compared to some of the other competing products out there. The quality of the book is good, the concept of the product is good, and we are grateful that we have these memories to cherish as time goes on, so there definitely are positives - but the lack of flexibility in the time available for writing and the costs that seem to continue accumulating are things that definitely need to be considered before purchasing this from Storyworth, particularly if you are thinking of giving this to someone as a gift.