Storyworth reviews and discussion

Got this as a gift for both my grandparents, and for my mother-in-law. Love the idea of it. But just wish it explained more to them what kinds of answers to give, photos to attach, etc. (despite us responding, too) because sometimes the answers were so short! We added our own questions, which helped a lot in making the gift feel even more personal. Also wish we could arrange/customize the final book a bit more. One thing we didn't love is that one of our family members got overwhelmed and needed a break from the emails, etc. so we had to pay AGAIN for them to be able to finish up their Storyworth questions asked all year. It was a bummer.

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.

Just like other reviewers say.. The subscription expires, you get no notification, and receive no book. I paid for the subscription plus the book and never was notified of anything and was never sent the book. Horrible customer service. Why did my mom answer these questions for a year of her life for absolutely no reason? So storyworth has a bunch of benign data about her? Bizarre that this company can't get their sh*t together.

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

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.

My sister got this subscription for our Mom as a gift. Once our mother was diagnosed with cancer, the meaning of it became so much more significant. I was able to request help on the design from the staff so I would not read it until published and enjoy it on our first Mother's Day alone after our mom's death. What a treasure that my sister and I now have to read about our loved one after her death! Thank you for the great care and support provided when asking weird questions of the staff. Plus, I was able to remove my copy from the mailer and then reuse it to ship to my sister.

It was a year's worth of reflecting and easily writing 52 stories in 52 weeks. It was so easy to get a question a week & write 1 story a week.

Storyworth provided a structure for putting my life in perspective as well as providing a vehicle for answering my children's weekly questions about my childhood, youth and especially about the formation of my values. How often I have wished I had asked my own parents more questions about their earlier lives! Especially in a culture where letter writing has declined as a form of memoir, it seems very important to capture in words a portrait of our loved ones' lives. I value Storyworth's providing the wherewithal to help one do exactly that! I'm very pleased with the published book that also includes favorite photos to amplify the text.

It's okay. I'm not thrilled about the experience. For how expensive the membership and book purchase were, I don't think it was worth it. The questions were very repetitive, editing the book was tedious, and the quality of the book isn't great.

My dad absolutely loved the experience of writing his life story. The finished book arrived in the post yesterday (UK) but he wanted to wait for me to FaceTime to open it with me. He was delighted with the look of the book. Even the photos which had flagged up as being low quality came out well. We needed the three months after the year’s prompts ended to pull it all together. The editing tool is a bit clunky - you had to edit carefully so that your photos sat within the text - downloading the whole text to ‘preview’ after edits. But we did it and Dad is really delighted with the end result. We paid extra for colour photos inside. Customer support were good at answering questions we had about upgrading to colour and ordering extra copies. This is a great gift!

This was an excellent experience! What a great way to encourage us to share history, family, remembrances with our kids. Process made it easy to build gradually and generate a prized collection of memories!

This was a Christmas gift from my daughter. I wasn't sure about how it would all work out, but answering the questions was fun and thought provoking. I didn't really know a lot about how to plan the book, and I didn't realize that you could arrange the order of the stories. I'm glad the book allowed pictures, because it made the entire book more valuable! One word of caution! I had left 3 drafts of stories and thought they would have been included in the final product, but they weren't and, of course, they were the most valuable of all the stories! I didn't know they weren't included until I got the book. Storyworth worked with me to fix the problem and gave me a discount on ordering a new book! I liked that I got an extra 3 months at the end of the year to finish my stories. I would recommend Storyworth to anyone who has family stories to tell. The final product was exceptional. I love it!

Storyworth is a tremendous opportunity for people to leave a written and photographic legacy for generations. The questions asked enable us to examine not only the events of our lives, but to describe our feelings, triumphs, and disappointments with the benefit of self reflection.

This was a Christmas present from my son and daughter in law. Writing every week was easier than I expected. I liked being able to add pictures. The book came quickly and the quality is wonderful.

I loved the questions that would come and the ability to remove, add or rearrange them. I ordered this for myself and our immediate family as my son is an only child and I wanted him to have stories one day when we are no longer here to remember us by (and maybe take a few tips or suggestions before then). I also thought the ability to add pictures to each story was a great idea. I just ordered the final product and am excited to give it to him for the first volume.

Storyworth made it easy for me to write most of the highlights of my life. Once I started, I looked forward to continuing my story even though some of the writing I did was done with much soul-searching. It was a particularly difficult time of my life right after my husband died, but my daughter thought that would be a good time to search and write. I am ever so grateful to her.

Kept me on track writing stories selected by my son/daughter-in-law. Great subjects picked for me. Leaving a legacy behind is precious. Book came quickly, beautifully bound and colorful pictures were terrific.