FAQ How – is our introduction for you, on how the story book creation happens, and the twenty separate steps to create a truly personalised story.
Stories My Nana Tells is a unique Australian online service which allows you to have a story fully personalised for a child.
We offer stories in two primary reading age categories: 6-8 years old, and 8 – 11 years old. The length of stories varies from about 3,000 words up to 10,000 words. The choice of adventure means some stories have more words, especially if they include more than one participant.
There are twenty separate steps required to create a truly personalised story and our FAQ How is written to help you follow the steps from when you first choose the story you want personalised to having it successfully delivered to you.
FAQ How to choose your story and place your order.
1. From the menu on the home page of the website, chose the story you want from the lists, by reading age
2. Order the story you want, using our Woo Commerce shopping cart.
3. Pay for your order, using PayPal. If you already don’t have a PayPal account, you can use a credit card on their site. We use PayPal because it is very secure, and well recognised.
a. PayPal will email you a receipt and send us a confirmation that your payment has been made.
b. Remember that your PayPal email address can be different to the email address you give to us.
FAQ How to complete your order by telling us about yourself.
4. From the website, you will receive a confirmation email, with a form attached. It’s here where you tell us about yourself and the child:
a. Your name, email address and postal address.
i. the email address is the one we are to use to keep you up to date with the stories progress.
Just so long as it’s an email address you use regularly, because we will be replying to it.
ii. The postal address is the “snail mail” address to which we will send the story.
b. Telephone number, where we can call you, if we need to do so.
c. Name of the story selected, from a drop-down selection list. The list of available stories depends on which age reading category you select. We are adding new stories to the lists on a regular basis.
d. Is the story for a girl, or a boy? All our stories include conversations, which need personal pronouns. (as in, he said, she asked, he replied, his home.)
e. The reading age group of the child. Either 6-8, 8-11, or 11+.
Tell us about the child.
f. Give us their first name. The name we will use in the story. The name they love hear when you read the story to them, or they read it themselves.
g. We need their Date of Birth, so we know how old they will be at their next, or at their last, birthday. We will refer to that in the story. It helps put the gift into a timeline context for them.
h. Who is their best friend? We only need their name, but anything else you want to tell us is helpful.
i. Write a short sentence about the child. Favourite foods, likes, activities, sports, pets, whatever you want featured in the story.
j. Who is giving the child this story? Is it Mum, Mum and Dad, Grandma, Uncle John, whomever you want shown on the front page as the person making the gift of the story.
5. Attach a recent photo of the child. That goes right up front, full page, at the beginning of the story.
6. Submit the form, with the photo attached to the form.
FAQ How we confirm everything. Expect some emails from us!
7. We will confirm your order, check the information on the form, and the photo. We ask for any other information we might need, to make the story more meaningful for the child. Don’t be afraid to tell us if there are any special things you want us to know.
8. Usually, we ask for two or three more photos, to build into the story line and put into the book. A photo with the best friend is always good.
9. When we have all the photos, we confirm their receipt, and start work on your chosen story.
10. We check all the photos, edit as necessary and upgrade them to a minimum of 300dpi for clear, full colour printing. Photos that come from Facebook and similar places are usually only 96dpi, and not good enough for full colour print.
FAQ How we bring your story to life.
11. Next, you receive the first three or four pages of the story by email in a digital file. You can review how we are creating the story with the information you provide to us.
12. When you confirm that, we finish writing the whole story with your child’s name used interactively throughout. All three or four photos are in the book.
13. We will email you a digital version of the finished story, once we are happy with the quality of the presentation. This includes the personalised cover page for your story. You can save this digital version to your own devices, and share it with family and friends, if you choose. You can print it, too. (although the full colour print is not far away)
FAQ How the creative production and completion process is done.
14. Your story comes printed in full colour on gloss art paper, and the personalised cover is on heavy duty card for long life.
15. We heat bind, staple, and secured bind the whole story with a plastic front page and spine, to ensure the whole book will last for years.
16. The final creative step is to create a personalised greeting card from us to the child and a thank you letter from us to the giver. We send the book, letter and card in the mail by letter post, rather than parcel post, for a speedy delivery, using the address nominated on the original form.
17. An email confirms the book, card and letter are in the post and that you can expect delivery within a few days.
FAQ How we confirm and keep in touch.
18. Seven days later, we confirm you have your delivery and that you are happy with the story and the book. We will ask you to recommend us on our Facebook page at http://facebook.com/storiesmynanatells if you are happy to do so.
19. About once a month or so, we send an emailed newsletter, because we like to keep you up-to-date with any new stories, events or activities we have happening.
20. You will invite you to join our Facebook Fans group, and / or to like our Facebook page. The page is Stories My Nana Tells
We are quite active on social media and love having interactions with our readers.
Are you planning on giving a personalised story fairly soon? Order it now! Just keep it under wraps until that special day. We promise we will not tell. Just choose the story you want from the home page from the drop down lists, by reading age.
About Snippets………..
We have new stories coming to the site regularly and we can spell any child’s name. We can!
Do you know a child whose name has a unique and unusual spelling? Get them their own personalised story from us. We have a great library and it is expanding all the time. Dozens of fun, real life travel experiences means we build them into the child’s own personal stories. Taking children on their own adventures in my magic red helicopter immerses them in good learning, too.
Keep in touch with us here and stay up to date.
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