About us

VPHistory.com (Virtual Personal History) is a virtual publishing company founded by a first-generation American, with roots in Canada, England, and beyond.

How it all began:

I helped my mother publish a cookbook years ago — incorporating her experiences living in Canada, Portugal, France, England, and the USA, in addition to traveling to many other countries within Europe and South America. She then began collecting stories and pictures for her own personal history, with the goal of publishing a hardcover book.
My father was also working on his own history but wanted to pursue a non-traditional route. He focused on not only saving memories, but also saving a few trees along the way. (Anecdotally, it may not be coincidence that this company/website's logo includes a tree coming out of a book). Not interested in publishing a physical book, he considered electronic means (a.k.a. virtual) such as blogs, or files that could be stored on a thumbdrive (word processing document or PDF files).
Over the last few years, I have helped my parents and others preserve their memories in the way that they desire. A keen focus of VPHistory is the proper use of technology (possibly even AI in bits) to help others create a published history in the way that helps them tell and share their story.

What we do

At VPHistory.com, our customers create project(s) in order to preserve memories and history. Various source materials are gathered, and the final result is a book. There are multiple materials that we can help gather, and there are various styles of books that can be made.

Customers can take the time they need to gather all materials for their book(s). They can send in emails, upload pictures, record audio, and much more.

Customers can choose a variety of books to publish. There are many styles of books, which can include paper or electronic formats. If an electronic is desired, it can be ceated each month and reviewed at any time. Paper books take a few days or weeks (depending on format and customization) to publish.

Five Publishing Steps - Start ot Finish:

1. Sign up for an account
2. Work with your personal publishing agent to decide HOW you want to add stories (phone call, emails, recordings, etc.)
3. Review & edit & organize your stories
4. Invite others to collaborate & contribute
5. Choose the output publishing format(s)

Create a "Project"

A project is basically a "book" that someone wants to create about someone or something. There are multiple project formats:

• Print book
• eBook
• Audiobook

Each project can specify 1 or more desired output formats.

Project Examples:

History Types

There are many ways to record and relay a history. Your history can be written in any style that you'd like. To get you thinking about how they can be written, here is a list of various "history types":

Autobiography

a full-life account, from start to finish, of a person's life — written by that person

Biography

a full-life account, from start to finish, of a person's life — written by some else

Memoir

handpicked memories of a person's life, usually with a theme in mind — written by that person

Travelogue

or travel memoir; a book or illustrated lecture about the places visited and experiences encountered by a traveler

The "Gathering" Process

Each project can include any (or all) of the following methods to gather source material:

1. Send an email
   • with just words
   • with words and pictures
   • with just pictures
2. Upload picture(s)
3. Upload video file(s)
4. Upload audio recording file(s)
5. Record your voice directly from this website, and have it converted to text
6. Schedule a phone will with us, and the conversation can be saved for an audiobook and/or converted to text

Publishing Options

Each project can be publishing as one (or more) of the following:

1. A printed book
   • hardcover
   • softcover (like a paperpack book)
   • saddle stich (magazine style)
   • coil bound
   • wire-o bound
   • comb bound
2. eBook (ePUB format)
3. electronic audio (MP3 format)
• conversation style
• podcast style

Our "Publishing Agents"

Every project will have an assigned VPHistory "publishing agent" to help you with your publishing journey, from start to finish. Ask them questions at any step fo the way.

Publishing agents can offer the following assitance:

• Answer questions via Email
• Answer questions via SMS (text messages)
• Answer questions via Phone Call
• Can offer editing assistance for your project, chapter, text, etc.

Editing Assistance

Our publishing agents can help you at any step of the way. Just ask!

Here are some examples of how they can help with editing:

• Clean up speech-to-text conversion
• Format/crop/edit photos

Make History with STORIES

Send us your written stories and we'll add them to your project.

Stories can be added to a project in these ways:

• Compose an email, write more of your story, and send to: story@vphistory.com
• Respond to a question sent to you from our website
• Reply to an email from our agents
• Record your voice on our website, and it will get converted to text
• Call our call center and the conversation can be added to a project as audio and/or converted to text
• Upload an audio file to convert to text, or use for audiobook

Make History with PICTURES

Send us your pictures and we'll add them to your project.

Pictures can be added to a project in these ways:

• Compose an email, attach picture(s), and send to: story@vphistory.com
• Respond to a question sent to you from our website with attached picture(s)
• Reply to an email from our agents with attached picture(s)
• Upload picture file(s) from this website
• Send us pictures in the mail and we can scan them to include in your project

Make History with VIDEOS

Send us your videos and we'll add them to your project.

Videos can be added to a project in these ways:

• Compose an email, attach small video(s), and send to: story@vphistory.com
• Respond to a question sent to you from our website with attached small video(s)
• Reply to an email from our agents with attached small videos(s)
• Upload videos file(s) from this website

Make History with VOICE Recordings

Send us your voice recordings and we'll add them to your project.

Voice recordings can be added to a project in these ways:

• Compose an email, attach voice recording file(s), and send to: story@vphistory.com
• Respond to a question sent to you from our website with attached voice recording(s)
• Reply to an email from our agents with attached voice recording(s)
• Upload audio files from this website
• Record your voice directly from this website