Henrik Ibsen first said “A thousand words leave not the same deep impression as does a single deed.” After his death in 1906, this quote was plagiarized and paraphrased into “a picture is worth a thousand words”. Turns out an ‘experience’ is worth a million, and a video is worth 1.8 million words – who knew? But my question is, “What’s a Storyworth?”
Before answering the question, let me introduce you to Storyworth. Storyworth is a company that makes it easy to document and share your memories. For about $90 you’ll get a one year subscription to add content to your book, then at the end of the year, they’ll publish it and send you a hard-bound copy. For more information about how all this works, here’s a video:
What I ended up doing was tossing out all of Storyworth’s weekly questions and I wrote my own. This is easy to do, and for me, made the end result much more satisfying. Also, I included several color photos in my book. When it comes time to publish. you’ll get a $39 credit toward the $99 cost of printing full color, up to 480 pages, plus free shipping and no tax. So in the end, I paid $89 for the subscription and another $60 to publish full color, or $149 for the final product.
I have yet to receive my book which is due October 17. I’ll update this post once the book arrives. But I have to say that Storyworth made the process to writing my story very straightforward.
So now to answer the original question, “What’s a Storyworth?” My story has 32,831 actual words and 165 pictures worth 1000 words each. Doing the math, my story is worth only 197,831 ‘words’. I have to say that was an awful lot of work for only that many words. But hold on, my story is all about my experiences, so in reality it’s worth many millions of words. And I guess that’s really the point. I set out to write a story about my life, the things that collectively make me the person I am today. Those experiences are priceless!
A picture is worth a mere thousand words, but my story (and yours) is worth so much more. I encourage you to find the time to document your experiences, to write your story. It’s a lot of work however you choose to do it, but it’s really worth it in the end!
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Update (11/1/2022)
Reprinting a single hardbound full color copy through Storyworth costs $100 each book. So I went hunting for a more economical printer. I ended up at Mixam.com and after loading the .PDF file exported from Storyworth into Microsoft Word, re-editing the entire book (sounds like a lot of work, but really wasn’t a big deal), and preparing a few additional files in PowerPoint for the front and back covers and the spine, I was ready to upload and publish my book again. This run was for 10 copies, 269 pages, full color in paperback, for a total cost of less than $200, delivered! November 10 is the date the books should arrive from the printer. I’ll provide a brief comment here about the quality of Mixam’s work after that.
Update (11/24/2022)
My books arrived and look amazing! Mixam did a great job with the information I provided. Here’s an image of the final result (soft cover):
Page alignment was excellent. All color images were reproduced perfectly. I have no complaints and highly recommend Mixam for quality and price! Only problem is, I didn’t proof my final edit well enough and this edition included several minor formatting glitches. None of this falls on Mixam. These errors were the result of taking the .PDF file from Storyworth, converting it into Word, then back to .PDF for the final print. You really need to check this final .PDF version for formatting errors before uploading it to Mixam. This I did not do as carefully as I should have. And truth be told, I was in a bit of a hurry. Lesson learned: slow down and get it right the first time!
So, I made all the edits (in Word again) I could find in the print edition and submitted the book to Mixam again – on my dime. At roughly $20/book, this can get a bit expensive, but quality is important to me so I simply had to reprint. I’ll call Mixam on Friday to make sure everything’s in order for the print run…
