B
ob Ely likes to look back on key
events in his life. There was his
separation from his German
father in the Second World
War; the times he was caught
up in the bloody Nigerian civil
war and a 7.2 magnitude earthquake
in Chile. And the day at a cadet camp
when cheekily he told King George
VI that the idea of joining the army
bored him.
Bob, 91, doesn’t want his life
story to die with him. That’s why
the former manager at British
American Tobacco from Oxford-
shire turned to one of a burgeon-
ing number of bespoke memoir-
writing companies. He was paired with
Michael Oke, 59, the founder of Bound
Biographies, who has spent almost
three decades turning other people’s
memories into prose and then print.
Over 20 years Bob and Michael have
been more prolific than Donna Tartt.
They’ve “collaborated on” two hefty
autobiographies of Bob’s life. “I’ve got
two more volumes lined up and there
may be a few more depending on how
much more I can remember or, more
importantly, how long I have left,” he
says with a laugh.
His memoirs, This Strange Eventful
History and After the Postscript, won’t
trouble the Sunday Times bestsellers
list. Only 30 copies of each were pub-BOOKS
More Britons
than ever are
paying up to £7,500
for ghostwriters
to pen their
memoirs. What’s
behind the boom,
asks Jake Helm
lished and given — rather than sold — to
Bob’s friends and family.
Michael and Bob are on trend. Since
the start of lockdown the demand forbespoke memoirs has skyrocketed.
One ghostwriter tells me her commis-
sions have increased by 130 per cent;
another’s have more than doubled.
Story Terrace, a London-based com-
pany that produces glossy memoirs
punctuated with family photographs,
says its workload is up 400 per cent
since the pandemic began. And that’s
before the Christmas rush.
But, how much is your life story
worth? Well, it’s certainly more than
a penny for your thoughts — up to
£7,500 to be precise, depending on
the package and the company.
Forever Stories offers an 18-page
collection of short stories, gleaned
from an hour-long interview with a
ghostwriter, for about £600. At the
top end, Bound Biographies usually
needs about six to ten six-hour meet-
ings to produce a weighty book of
about 50,000 words (150 to 250 pages)
for up to £7,500.
The finished works can sound like a
ballad (Looking for the Silver Lining) or
a self-help book (Life Is What You Make
It). One title, Yabba Dabba Doo, appears
to be The Flintstones’ sequel, but is an
affectionate in-joke between a husband
and wife. Another, Heads for Medicine,
tells of a nurse who as a teenager
flipped a coin to decide whether she
went into medicine or law. She made
sure the coin landed on its head.14 28 November 2021