Why BrightSide exists
So the stories a family grows up on don’t fade into an outline.
It began with a grandfather’s stories.
My grandfather told the same stories over and over. I’d heard some so often I could finish them in my head before he got to the end, and it never once occurred to me to write any of it down. He was right there. Why would I?
I can still picture him exactly. His voice, the way he held himself, how he’d start laughing before the punchline. What I lost is everything underneath: the stories that explained how he became that man.
What I have now are fragments. A town he lived in. A name that came up more than once. Something hard he went through that I know only the outline of. I know who he ended up being. I can’t tell you how he got there, and he was the only one who could have told me.
Losing him was always going to happen. Losing the rest of it didn’t have to. That went slowly, in pieces, and I never noticed it going until it was already gone.
I started BrightSide Books so other families don’t have to learn that the way I did. Someone’s life, in their own words, recorded while they’re still here to tell it, so that when their grandchildren go looking for them, there’s something to find.
— Alex, founder
Who makes your book
BrightSide is a small team. Here is who does what.
- Project management.
- A project manager coordinates every project, from the first conversation to the day the books arrive, so you always know who to ask.
- The interviews.
- Led by a professional interviewer, by video, from the person’s home.
- The writing.
- A writer on our team turns the recorded conversations into the manuscript.
- Proofreading.
- A proofreader goes through every manuscript. Your family then reviews it chapter by chapter.
- Design and photograph restoration.
- The pages, cover and dust jacket, and every photograph repaired before it goes in.
- Printing and binding.
- A specialist bindery in England prints, sews and binds every book.
What we hold to
We listen first.
The interviewer follows the story where it goes. The book is built around what they choose to tell.
We look for the shape.
A life isn’t a list of dates. We find the thread that explains who they became and build the book around it.
Your family decides.
Nothing begins without a written proposal you’ve approved, and nothing is printed until you’ve approved the manuscript and the final proof.
One book at a time.
We’re a small team, and each family has our full attention while their book is underway.
Private, by design
Never published.
Your family’s book is never published or sold.
Never used without permission.
Recordings, photographs and pages are never used to promote BrightSide without your permission.
Used for your book.
Interviews and family material are used to make the book you commissioned.
Approved by you.
Nothing goes to print until your family has approved it.
Based in Connecticut, working anywhere
BrightSide is based in Cheshire, Connecticut. Interviews are held by video, so we work with families anywhere in the country.
If you’d like to talk it through with me directly, this is where to start.
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