A big anniversary is one of the few occasions where the book has an obvious shape already: how you met, what happened, what you built. It also has two authors, which is the interesting part — because the two of you will remember it differently, and that disagreement is the best material in the book.
An anniversary gift: write the story of the two of you
Four things worth knowing before you ask
Two people who were there remember it differently, and the difference is the best material in the book.
- Record them separately first. Together, one of them becomes the narrator and the other becomes the audience.
- Ask each of them the same questions, and keep both answers even where they contradict.
- Then record them together, and ask about something they disagree on. That conversation is usually the one the family wants.
- Ask what they thought of each other before they liked each other.
The questions, and how to record the answers
Forty interview questions grouped by who you are asking and which part of their life, plus the one-page recording guide — which room, where to put the phone, what to say at the start, and what to do if they become upset. It arrives in about thirty seconds.
Why this one lands
Most couples have a version of the story they tell at parties. It is about four minutes long and it has been smoothed by thirty years of retelling.
Underneath it is everything the four-minute version leaves out: what you actually thought of each other, the year it nearly did not work, what you were both frightened of. That is the book, and nobody else can write it.
Why not a notebook
The beautiful notebook is the standard gift here and it nearly always ends in a drawer — not because it is a bad object, but because what stands between someone and their book is not a lack of paper. It is not knowing where to start, not believing anyone would want to read it, and having no structure to follow.
A gift that supplies those three things gets used. One that supplies stationery adds a small, gentle weight of obligation to a pile that already exists.
What to do first
Record the two of you telling it together, and do not correct each other. Let the contradictions stand — he says it was raining, it was not raining is the most alive thing on the page.
One hour, both of you, one recorder. That is the whole first step, and for many couples it becomes the anniversary present in itself.
A note on doing this well
If one of you wants to do this and the other does not, do not push. Record your own version, keep it, and leave the door open. Books like this go wrong when they become an obligation for the reluctant half.
What you're actually giving
Your Book Pro is a British book-writing platform. You bring a book — an idea, a folder of notes, half a draft, or a finished manuscript written somewhere else — and it gives you the editorial process a publisher would run: a plan, structured feedback, a simulated beta read, a line edit, a proofread, a cover, a blurb and a print-ready file. You can type it, upload it or speak it. The tools sit in one place and work on the same manuscript, so the feedback compounds instead of arriving as twelve disconnected opinions.
What you are actually giving. They can talk it rather than type it, which matters for anyone who finds a blank screen intimidating — and most people who have never written a book do. Recordings become clean transcripts; transcripts become chapters; the editorial tools work on the result.
Every account starts with 1,000 welcome credits that never expire. No subscription, no deadline, nothing to cancel. That matters for a gift: there is no clock running, and nobody feels they have wasted your money by not starting until March.
And the Book Coach is free at yourbook.pro/book-coach with no account, so they can try it before you give them anything at all — and so can you.
At the end there is a printed book. A single proof copy is around £4.25 plus roughly £4.15 UK shipping. For a great many people, holding it is the whole point — and it is worth ordering one early, at the messy-draft stage, because paper makes a book feel possible in a way a file never does.
Try the Book Coach — free, no account
See the question sets
Email me the questionsQuestions people ask
- Should we write it together or separately?
- Record together — the disagreements are the best material. Write separately if you can, in alternating sections, because two voices on the page is more interesting than one agreed account.
- Does the gift expire?
- No. The welcome credits never expire and there is no subscription to cancel — which is deliberate, because a gift with a clock on it becomes a source of guilt rather than a present.
- Do they need to be good with computers?
- No. They can talk rather than type, on a phone, and someone else can do the uploading. Plenty of family books are made by one person recording and another assembling.
- Can I help them with it?
- Yes, and for family stories that is usually how it works — one person interviews, another types or uploads, and the book belongs to everyone.
- What if they never use it?
- Start with the free question sets and one recorded afternoon. Even if no book follows, the recording is the thing families are most glad to have.