These are the most common questions about Photomemoirs and our products and memoir services. Please contact us if you don't find the answer to your question here. We're happy to help and will do our best to respond within 48 hours.

You can pay online by credit card. We use PayPal as our secure payment partner. They are an internalionally recognized payment service. You can pay via PayPal using a credit card, just like you would on any ecommerce website. You can also pay by making a bank transfer. Our bank details will be on the order receipt/ invoice that you will receive after your order. PayPal and bank fees are not included in the price but are the standard rates with no added fees.

Yes. You are welcome pay in two payment instalments. The first payment will be when you order. The second payment will be when you send us the material for our work to begin. There is no discount for paying the full amount in advance or up front. 

We prefer that you we receive payment from one person to cut down on paperwork and confusion.

Yes. We have a gift card service and a Gift pack (see next question). If the person accepts the gift, then the rest of the full payment must be made within 30 days. If the person receiving the gift rejects the gift, then we will refund in full but deducting the fees charge to us in connection with receiving or sending payments. We recommend that you consider carefully if the person receiving the gift card, would enjoy it and is able to complete a Photomemoirs book project. Contact us if you would like our advice.

You can buy the Photomemoirs starter pack as a gift pack in a personalized version. This will include a mock-up book cover with a suggestion for a title and a photo. For this we charge a fee and will need 7 days and a some photos from you. We find that a personalized gift voucher does sometimes help encourage the person receiving the gift to visualize it coming a reality.

Yes, that's wonderful, but to avoid confusion, we prefer only to communicate with one person in the group who will be our contact person for daily contact and billing.

Yes. You will receive 5 editions of the paperback book on completion of the book. These are included in your initial order. Then at any time we can order extra books for you to give away. You will be charged an author copy price + shopping costs and a tiny handling fee. The author copy price is lower than the list price on Amazon. Your author copy books can be sent to your address so that you can sign them and include personal messages. Or they can be sent to the address of the person you wish to give a book to.

No. All photographs are subject to copyright and you will need to get the copyright holder’s permission to use photos that are not your own. We will give you more information about this is in the Photomemoirs Starter Kit.

No, we are not publishers in the traditional sense. A traditional publishing business, like say Harper Collins, buys, a book manuscript from a writer that they think that the general public will pay to read. The author doesn’t pay to have their book published. A traditional publisher pays for all the costs of preparing the book for publication and for this the traditional publisher usually keeps 90% of the royalties of book sales leaving 10% for the author.

In the case of Photomemoirs, both you and Photomemoirs are the publisher. We team up to become a joint “self-publisher”. You provide the photographs and stories and we provide a structured method for you to transform your photos and memories into a Photomemoirs book. Together we self-publish your Photomemoirs book on publishing platforms on the internet like Amazon and Barnes & Noble, in a digital or paperback edition.

The reason you, and we, can be a self-publisher is thanks to digital technology. Before modern technology, books were printed in large volumes by a printing business. This is called volume printing. It was not financially viable to print one book. Now, thanks to digital technology a book can be “printed on demand” This is called Print on Demand (POD). This means that that when someone orders a copy of your book online, a digital Print on Demand (POD service will print just that one copy of your book and deliver it. This eliminates the cost of having to print and store thousands of books that might never be sold. This technology makes it much easier and cheaper for anyone to publish a book.

After your Photomemoirs book is published on Amazon, then the royalty split is as follows: Amazon gets 30%, you get 65% and Photomemoirs keeps the rest as a handling fee for managing royalty payments. So you split the profit from the sales with Amazon. So, it works like this. You pay us, Photomemoirs, to help you get your book ready for printing. Amazon put it on their website and handle the printing and delivery without charge to you or us, but you split your royalty payment with Amazon..

That said, please note that Photomemoirs is a different approach to writing memoirs because the concept of publishing a Photomemoirs memoir, is for it to be a hobby project for family and friends to read, rather than a bestseller that will generate a large profit. It’s very unlikely that most Photomemoirs writers will sell many copies or top the bestseller lists, because you are writing it for yourself, your family and most importantly for fun and not for profit.

The first Photomemoirs book that we published was written by our own mother. It was warmly received by friends and family. She sold around 40 copies to friends and family in total. Some she ordered herself and gave away. She didn’t make any money on book sales and she didn’t expect to. Because of all the colour photos and the colour cover,l the printing cost of her book is much higher than a bestselling novel, so she chose to keep the price low and only make a tiny royalty. She knew that only family and friends and maybe a few historians would be interested, and she chose to keep the price at cost. Contact us if you have questions about royalty.

You do, but in consultation with us. The Photomemoirs concept offers an simple way to write a memoir by giving you a ready-made structure for your memoir. The Photomemoirs structure is that you choose memorable photos and tell the story behind the photo. Then we receive the photos and recordings and turn them into a book.

That is really your choice but in our experience the average time the Photomemoirs process will take from start to finish is 2 to 6 months.

There are no rules or requirements, but generally we would say for our concept that 65 onwards is a good age. Generally too we recommend it as a family project and recommend that a younger family member helps an elderly member with support throughout each stage of the process. Your Photomemoir editor will also give you support throughout the entire process.

Sadly, this can happen. We try to be as flexible as possible and we evaluate any special circumstances in a fair way and will make an appropriate refund of up to 50% for uncompleted projects.

Yes. The Photomemoirs terms and conditions include a non-disclosure agreement. Whatever you reveal to us and later choose not to include in the book, is completely confidential and will never be disclosed. We will also delete all notes if you wish.

Yes. We have a Photomemoirs editor partnership for freelance writers to become Photomemoir editors.

No. At present we do not have an affiliate program, but please contact us if you have ideas for a partnership.

Yes. We are always looking for writers to join our team. More information on our jobs page.