About us

Tell Me Again is a sole proprietorship operated by Melisa Ames, trading as Tell Me Again, at 3916 N Potsdam Ave, Apt 2432, Sioux Falls, SD 57104, United States. You can reach us at hello@tellmeagainbooks.com.

You must be 18 or over to place an order.

What you can buy

Prompt & Print — $49
You choose the questions. We typeset and print them as a book with space to write, with the storyteller’s name on the cover, and post it to you. Twenty-five questions, two facing pages each, in a 7 × 10 inch workbook, coil bound so it lies flat for writing. What happens next is between you and the person you give it to — unless you later want it bound, which is the Keepsake Upgrade below.

The Keepsake Upgrade — $146
For anyone who bought Prompt & Print, filled it in, and now wants it kept properly. Send the completed workbook back to us with the prepaid label we provide, and we photograph every page and bind the answers, in the storyteller’s own handwriting, into an 8½ × 11 inch hardback with their name on the cover. $49 plus $146 is $195 — exactly what Guided Completion costs bought outright. You pay nothing extra for deciding later.

There is no deadline on it. We are not holding a file that expires; the workbook is in your hands. Come back after six months or after six years, and the price is the same.

Guided Completion — $195
The same book. The storyteller fills it in and posts it back to us with the prepaid label we include. We photograph every page and place their answers, in their own handwriting, in an 8½ × 11 inch hardback with their name on the cover.

Guided Completion Plus — $345
The same book, with a typed page facing each handwritten one, so every answer can be read easily as well as seen in their own hand.

Full Interview — two conversations, 120 minutes — $595
Full Interview — three conversations, 180 minutes — $850
We interview the storyteller, using the questions you chose, and every answer is typed up and printed in the book for them. Built for families where the storyteller will not or cannot sit down and write. Conversations are one hour each, on separate days, by telephone. That is deliberate: an hour is what most people can comfortably do, memory works better with gaps, and things surface between conversations that we can follow up. The finished product is the same 8½ × 11 inch hardback as Guided Completion.

The Written Story — three conversations — $1,595
The Written Story — four conversations — $1,950
Everything in the Full Interview, but the conversations are written up as a continuous life story in prose rather than answers under questions. This is the only option where the finished book reads as a narrative, at about 16,000 words, bound as a 6 × 9 inch hardback. It includes two rounds of revisions — see Revisions below. Photographs can be included: if they are, the whole book is printed in colour on white paper rather than cream, because that is how the printer works, and we will say so before you choose.

What none of these include: research, fact-checking, photograph restoration, tracing relatives, or work beyond the minutes you have bought. Further interview time can be arranged, and we will quote it before we start.

Prices, shipping and additional copies

Prices are in US dollars and include one copy of the finished book and standard shipping to the UK or the United States. Faster shipping is offered at checkout for an extra charge. Books are printed as close to you as we can; if yours has to cross a border, any import charge is yours and we will tell you before we print.

The Keepsake Upgrade is $146, whenever you want it. Additional copies are $35 each, or $45 in large print, and a second workbook is $25. They are available at any point while we hold your book file, and most easily ordered when you approve the finished book. Families often want one each — order them together and they ship together.

Large print. Wider writing lines in the workbook, for a hand that has become less steady, cost nothing extra. A large-print copy of the finished book, at 17 point, is an additional copy at $45.

Nothing renews. One payment, one book.

We take a limited number of interview bookings at a time. If a payment link says we are at capacity, no payment is taken; ask us when the next place opens.

How long it takes, and when the clock starts

What you bought	How long	Counted from
Prompt & Print	Up to 4 weeks, to your door	The day your questions reach us
Guided Completion	6–8 weeks	The day your completed book reaches us
The Keepsake Upgrade	6–8 weeks	The day your completed workbook reaches us
Full Interview	10–12 weeks	Your first conversation
The Written Story	14–16 weeks	Your first conversation

For the interview options, we will offer you a first conversation within three weeks of your order, at a time that suits the storyteller. The clock above starts at that first conversation.

Guided Completion is counted from the day the book comes back to us, not from your order. There is no time limit on filling it in — some people take a fortnight and some take half a year, and that is entirely fine. We simply cannot start our part until it arrives. We will send one gentle note at three months to ask how it is going, and that is the only time we will ask. It is not a nudge to hurry; it is so you know we are still here, and so a book that has been set aside is not one we have forgotten.

The clock pauses while a proof is with you, and we tell you when it stops and when it starts again. When we send you something to approve, that email says the clock is paused. When you approve it, the next email says the clock has restarted and roughly how long is left. You should never have to work out where your book has got to. We ask for an answer within 14 days. If we have not heard from you after 30 days the book simply waits — nothing is cancelled and nothing is lost, and it starts again the moment you come back to us. These are the outside figures; we would rather beat them than explain them.

Proofs and approval

Nothing is ever printed on your silence. Every book waits for you to say yes.

Prompt & Print: before anything is printed we email you the cover and the twenty-five questions in order, usually within two working days of your questions reaching us. You approve it with one click. If a name or a spelling is wrong, reply and we will fix it — we answer within two working days. If we have not heard from you after 72 hours we will check in once, in case the email went astray.

Guided Completion and the Full Interview: the storyteller sees the finished book first — as a file, or read to them — and may remove anything, without giving a reason. Then you approve it, and only then is it printed. One round of changes from you is included; we correct our own errors — a mistyped answer, a misspelt name — at any point before printing, at no charge. If the storyteller would rather have the book read to them than read it themselves, we do that — up to 30 minutes is included. For the interview options, anything beyond that comes out of the interview time already bought; for Guided Completion we will quote it first. Either way we say so before we start rather than afterwards.

The Written Story: two rounds of revisions on the draft, then the storyteller’s approval of what appears, then yours.

The Keepsake Upgrade is the one exception: you approve it, and the storyteller does not see a proof. Nothing has been transcribed, interpreted or written by us — it is their own page, photographed. They chose what to write and handed the workbook over, and that was the moment of consent.

Where the storyteller has removed something, it stays removed. If a change you ask for would put back something they took out, we will not make it, and we will not tell you what it was. That is the promise we made them, and it is the reason the book is worth having.

Once you have approved a book, a change you ask for after printing is a paid reprint. A mistake that is ours is reprinted at our cost.

Changing your mind

Before we start making anything, tell us and you get a full refund. “Before we start” means before your book file goes to the printer, or before the first interview conversation.

Once production has begun, we cannot accept a change of mind. For Guided Completion, if you change your mind after the workbook has been printed but before the completed workbook comes back to us, we refund the difference between what you paid and the price of Prompt & Print. Every book is personalised — your questions, and a name on the cover — so it cannot be sold to anyone else. Under UK and EU consumer law, goods made to your specification are excluded from the usual right to cancel, and this is that.

For the interview options, which are services rather than goods, you normally have 14 days to cancel. Because most families want to begin sooner, we ask you at checkout to confirm you want us to start straight away and that you understand the right to cancel ends once the work is complete. Before then you can still stop: you are refunded in full for any conversation that has not happened, and charged fairly for work already done.

Nothing here removes rights you have under consumer law that cannot be excluded.

The storyteller

They are not the person who bought the book, and their answers belong to them.

We ask their permission directly — on a page at the front of the workbook before any question is answered, and out loud at the start of the first interview before anything is recorded. Not through you, and not as a tick on your checkout.

They may decline any question, stop at any time, or ask for something to be removed afterwards — even after printing, in which case we reprint the affected pages at no charge to anyone.

They, not you, have the final say on what appears in their book. Anything can be struck before printing, and they do not have to give a reason. We will not tell you what was removed.

We know that may be an odd thing to read as the person paying. It is what makes the book worth having: someone who believes their answers will be edited by their family does not answer honestly, and a book of careful answers is not worth printing.

If you are buying a book for yourself, you are both people, and all of this simply applies to you.

Confidentiality, and the limit on it

What is said in an interview goes into the book. It is not reported back to you separately, and it is not repeated in conversation with you.

There is one limit, and we would rather state it than imply an absolute promise we could not keep. Where something said indicates that someone is at risk of serious harm, we may need to act on it. That is said plainly at the start of the first conversation, not buried here.

If someone dies before the book is finished

Many of these books are begun after a diagnosis, and sometimes the storyteller dies before the book is done. If that happens:

• You are not charged for anything that did not take place. Any unused conversations are refunded without you having to ask.
• You choose what happens next, with no deadline. You may ask us to finish the book from whatever was captured; to hold everything exactly as it is until you are ready to decide; or to stop entirely and take a full refund, with the material returned to you or destroyed, whichever you prefer.
• If you ask us to finish it, we finish it at no extra cost — including reprinting the pages of questions that were never reached, so the book does not read as interrupted. A half-finished workbook in someone’s own hand is already a finished object.
• Nothing is deleted while you are deciding. Our usual retention timetable is suspended until you have chosen.
• If you need copies before the book is finished, for a funeral or a memorial, tell us. We will make every attempt to have them ready in time, though we cannot promise it.

Revisions

For The Written Story, two rounds of revisions are included: you read a draft, tell us what to change, we change it, and you see it again. We will come back to you within three weeks of hearing from you, and usually sooner. You have up to four weeks with each draft — take the time you need, and tell us if you need longer. Neither of these is a deadline you can fall foul of; they are the outside edges, so that nobody is left wondering. Further rounds are $95 an hour, agreed before we start.

For every other option one round of your changes is included at the proof stage, and we correct our own errors at any point before printing, at no charge.

Reprints after the book is finished

While we hold your book file — twelve months from delivery — any further copy is an additional copy at the published price.

The Keepsake Upgrade is the exception and has no time limit, because it needs the workbook rather than a file we are storing. It is $146 whenever you are ready.

After that, a reprint needs the original workbook, or your own photographs of it, scanned again: a flat restore fee of $95, then copies at the published price.

If the storyteller has died and you need copies for a funeral or a memorial, they go ahead of everything else, at the additional-copy price. We will have the files with the printer within five working days, and usually sooner. The printing and the post are not ours to promise — but tell us the date you need them by and we will tell you honestly whether it can be met before you pay anything.

Who owns what

The words are the family’s. The answers, the story and the finished book belong to you and to the storyteller. We claim no rights over any of it, we will not publish or quote from it, and we will not use it as a sample or case study without first asking the storyteller, and you, in writing — and you are free to say no.

Our print partner holds a licence to reproduce the book solely to print it for you, and nothing more.

The questions, the prompt library, the book design and our templates remain ours, except any question you wrote yourself, which is yours. Buying a book does not license you to reproduce them commercially or to use them to build a competing product.

Shipping, damage and the returned workbook

Standard shipping is included in the price. Once a book is printed it is usually with you inside a week — the four-week figure above is the whole job, not the post. Faster options are offered at checkout. Every book is sent on a tracked service and you will get the tracking number when it is posted.

Delivery times are estimates. Once a book is with the carrier, postal delays and customs checks are outside our control, though we will chase them for you.

If a book arrives damaged or misprinted, email hello@tellmeagainbooks.com within 30 days of delivery with a photo, and we will replace it free. Tell us within 30 days if you can, because it makes the claim quicker, but a fault that shows up later is still ours to put right. You will not need to send anything back. If a book is lost in the post, tell us and we will reprint it.

A book containing someone’s handwriting is irreplaceable. For Guided Completion and the Keepsake Upgrade we include a prepaid tracked label for sending the completed workbook back to us — for Guided Completion it is in the box, and for the Keepsake Upgrade we email it to you as soon as you reply to your order email with the details we ask for. The postage is in the price either way. We photograph every page the moment it arrives, so the answers survive even if the original is later damaged. The original is posted back to you by tracked post within 14 days of the book’s approval, unless you ask us to destroy it.

For UK orders the completed workbook goes to a member of Melisa’s family in the UK, who receives it on our behalf, so it never crosses a border.

Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Tell Me Again is not liable for indirect, incidental or consequential damages, and our total liability for any order is limited to the price you paid for it. Nothing here limits rights that cannot be excluded under consumer protection law, and nothing here limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud.

Governing law

Tell Me Again is based in South Dakota, United States. These terms, and any dispute arising out of them or out of a purchase from us, are governed by the laws of the State of South Dakota, without regard to its conflict of law provisions.

If you are a consumer resident in the United Kingdom or the European Economic Area, nothing in this section removes the protection given to you by the mandatory law of your own country. You keep your local consumer rights, and you keep the right to bring proceedings in your local courts.

Changes to these terms

These terms may be updated from time to time. The date at the top shows when they were last revised, and the terms that apply to your order are the ones in force when you bought.