Overview
You’ll have a memoir manuscript that reads like you on your best day: clear, paced, and true to what happened, without the rough edges of transcripts or the flattening that makes people avoid their own book.
We’ll capture your story in recorded interviews, build the spine, and write the manuscript in your voice. You’ll have a finished draft you can hand to family, colleagues, or a publisher, plus clear next steps and what it costs.
We start by listening with intent, then we turn what you already have into a working timeline and a story spine we can both see. From there we draft in your voice, check meaning before we polish, and keep the sensitive parts under your control, right through to a clean manuscript you can share.
Who you are working with
We’re a book-development and ghostwriting team built around long-form interviews. Most of our work starts the same way: someone has lived or led through enough change to fill notebooks, then real life keeps pushing the book back. We step in at the point where the material exists, but the shape, voice, and time to write it do not.
Clients pick us because we don’t treat memoir as a data-dump, and we don’t write a generic “inspirational” arc over the top. We build the structure first, then write scenes and reflections to fit it. We keep a running list of what’s off the page, we flag anything legally or personally sensitive, and we only move forward on wording you recognise as yours.
The team
You’ll have one lead writer day-to-day, plus a small support team that keeps the book accurate, consistent, and moving.
Team
Hannah Price, Lead ghostwriter. Hannah leads the interviews, builds the story spine with you, and writes the draft you’ll recognise. She keeps a notes-to-pages trail so decisions don’t get lost.
Samir Khan, Book editor. Samir handles structure on the page, especially pacing and chapter turns. He’s the person who spots when a good anecdote is sitting in the wrong place.
Bethan Hughes, Fact-check lead. Bethan runs the fact-check pass, building a query list you can answer quickly. She tracks names, dates, and quoted material so the final reads clean and stays defensible.
Tom Weaver, Audio and transcripts. Tom manages the recording setup and transcripts from interview days. He labels files by session and topic so we can pull the right moment back up when a scene needs precision.
A recent memoir
This is what the work looks like when the material is real, messy, and valuable, and the client wants a book that still sounds like them.
A senior clinician stepping back from an intense leadership role, with years of talks, case notes, and personal journal entries. They had plenty to say, but the material came in bursts: speeches, strong stories, and long stretches of context. They were worried the book would read like stitched-together transcripts, and they didn’t want colleagues to hear a stranger’s voice under their name.
We built a timeline from existing documents, then used interview days to fill the missing connective tissue and test the voice in real time. We drafted the opening chapters first, agreed the tone and level of detail, and only then pushed through the full manuscript in three controlled passes.
They ended up with a complete manuscript that could be read cover to cover without inside knowledge. The final draft held a consistent voice and a clear through-line from the first chapter to the closing reflection.
“I was worried I’d get a polished version of someone else. The draft sounded like me, and the structure made sense of years of notes without losing the point.”
Founder, after an exit
Our approach
Memoir goes best when we make decisions early and keep the writing moving. You’ll always know what we’re doing with your material, what we need from you next, and what we’re choosing to leave out for now.
1. Interview capture Weeks 1-3 We schedule on-site interview days and record long-form conversations, guided by a topic map rather than a strict script. You bring notebooks, talks, and any fragments you want us to see. We handle recording, backups, and transcripts, then share a short recap of what we heard and what we’ll chase next. 2. Timeline and spine Weeks 2-5 We build a working timeline and a story spine that shows the order, the turning points, and what each chapter is for. You’ll review it for accuracy and emphasis. This is also where we set boundaries, including names to change, areas to avoid, and what needs extra care when it goes on the page. 3. Voice-matching start Weeks 4-7 We draft the first three chapters to lock the voice, the pace, and the balance between scene and reflection. You mark what sounds right and what sounds off, in plain terms. We adjust before the manuscript gets long, so the rest of the book doesn’t drift into something that feels like us instead of you. 4. Manuscript passes Weeks 8-18 We deliver the full manuscript in three passes: a complete draft, a reworked draft based on your notes, then a final polish focused on clarity and consistency. You’ll get clear review windows and a single set of questions at a time, so feedback stays focused and the book keeps moving. 5. Checks and handover Weeks 16-20 We run a fact-check and a sensitivity read pass, then send you a query list for anything that needs confirmation, softening, or removal. Once that’s resolved, we deliver the final manuscript and a practical handover note on next steps, whether that is agents, publishers, or a private print run.
Recorded interview sessions
On-site interview days with audio capture, plus organised session files. We plan the prompts, run the sessions, and keep the recordings labelled so nothing disappears into a folder of dates.
TRANSCRIPT SET
Clean transcripts from the recorded sessions, formatted for search and reuse. You can keep them for your own archive, even if parts never make it into the book.
TIMELINE AND STORY SPINE
A working timeline and chapter-by-chapter spine that shows what each section covers and why it is there. This is the map we write to, and you sign it off.
First three draft chapters
A voice-matching draft of the opening chapters, written to test tone, pacing, and level of detail. You’ll use these to confirm, in writing, that the book sounds like you.
COMPLETE MEMOIR MANUSCRIPT
A full manuscript delivered in three passes: complete draft, revised draft, and final polish. Each pass arrives as a single readable document, with changes tracked where it helps review.
FACT-CHECK AND SENSITIVITY NOTES
A query list and notes from the fact-check and sensitivity read pass, so you can confirm details and make informed choices about names, dates, and material that could land badly.
Pricing
Pick the option that matches how much shape your material already has. These figures are typical starting points, and we’ll confirm the total once we’ve seen your notes and sample pages.
Priced items
Next steps
If you want to move from material to manuscript, the next step is to lock dates for capture and get the first interview day in the diary.
1. Sign and return the proposal so we can hold interview dates. 2. Send any existing notes, talks, or drafts you want us to build from. 3. Book the first on-site interview day and start capture.
Signature
Fee summary
Payment
We take 30% to book interview days, 40% at sign-off of the timeline and story spine, and 30% on delivery of the full manuscript draft. Invoices are due within 14 days.
Interview time. For a full memoir we usually capture 18 to 30 hours of recorded interviews, spread over on-site days. If we need more time to cover the story properly, we’ll flag it before we schedule it.
Your materials. Before the first interview day, we’ll ask for any notebooks, talks, articles, case notes, or existing drafts you want us to use, plus a list of key people and dates. We’ll tell you what’s missing.
Reviews and turnaround. You’ll review the timeline and spine, the first three chapters, and each manuscript pass. We’ll build dates together, and we ask for notes within 10 working days so the draft stays consistent in voice.
Changes to scope. If you add new sections, a new time period, or additional people to interview after we’ve agreed the story spine, we’ll price the extra work in writing before we do it. No surprise invoices.
Voice and approval
We’ll write to match your phrasing and rhythm, and we’ll check meaning before we polish. You have final approval on what stays on the page, and we’ll keep an audit trail of major changes.
Fact-check and sensitivity. Our fact-check and sensitivity notes are a structured pass for accuracy and risk, using the sources you provide and what we can reasonably verify. Final legal clearance, including libel review, sits with you.
Ownership and recordings. Once paid in full, you own the manuscript words and the project files we hand over. You also own the raw audio recordings and transcripts. We don’t reuse your material or quote it without permission.
Confidentiality. We treat your interviews, recordings, transcripts, and drafts as confidential. We’ll only share them within our team of 7 on a need-to-know basis, and we’ll use secure storage for files and backups.
