StoryTerrace Avis 

From the writer to editor their help was invaluable. My story contained names and places that are not easy to spell and all was checked and corrected where needed
I only have an iPad and poor signal so it was not easy for anyone but they went out of their way to work with it and timed everything so I could keep it a secret from my family
I am thrilled with the finished book and it does sound like me when I read it.
It was not cheap but worth doing, so there is a small history for my family when I’m gone

I am being generous when giving them 1 star. I was bilked out of over $4000 for a total waste of time and money. I bought the best they had to offer. The "local writer they assigned me with was located in Romania. He had some creative writing experiance at a junior college in Texas. After a intensive interview I was appalled by how he projected my book. I tried to work with several editors, but to no avail as they were they tried to upsell me. I finally worked out a deal that was killed by them stating I voided my contract thus cancelling the book and keeping my deposit and the additional moey sent them. Too many red flags here. Check them out on the Better Business Bureau with a D+ rating it looks like they rip off a lot of folks, DO NOT BE THE NEXT ONE...YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

Hi Mita,

How about the following for the review – happy to make any changes and also can you check names are right please.

Also just checked and you have to have a user account to post this so I cant post so suggest way round if you cant post is to email to Nadia/Alice and ask if they can post on your behalf ?

Just let me know when you want to chat through and hope this helps

Thanks

Katie



Title – Great service and so pleased with book



Need to add in Date ? January 2025




I am so happy I used story Terrace to help me /share my story.
The experience was excellent,all of the staff were brilliant,kind,caring,understanding.
I would like to personally thank Nadia,Aliceand Xiaofang for all the continual support and kindness.
I am delighted with my book thank you




Yahoo Mail: Search, organise, conquer

The concept of Story Terrace is very good. Our writer, Mary Gold was excellent, our project editor, Freya Coombes was helpful within the confines of the draconian rules of the parent company. We were pleased with the end result but that was only due to the effort and work put in by ourselves and the writer, and all the extra money we paid.
I first contacted Story Terrace early November 2023 and paid the fee of £4875 in early December. We first heard from Freya our project editor three months later and were introduced to our writer shortly afterwards. Brian does not hear well so we needed face to face. We live on the border of Northumberland and Durham and Mary from Canterbury was the nearest to be found. We were offered one from Manchester previously but he disappeared when told it was a three hour journey. Trying to find a compatible writer seems to be the reason for the delay from taking our money to starting the project, with little in the way of apology along the way.
The interviews between Mary and Brian were going well so we asked for some additional hours, which meant additional pages and photographs and an additional cost of £3225.
We received the first draft, produced by AI and we have never read such rubbish, more than 80% was total fiction. For example, we were both retired, we both still work. Our favourite holiday was backpacking across Canada, Brian would not know what a backpack was, we do five star. We had been on an African safari, never been to Africa. Our whole farm was organic, never has been. We organise huge County charity auctions and Summer Solstice events, really? Never. You get the picture.
I asked for a full refund or for Mary the writer to take it back without any interference from AI, which is what happened.
Then we were told we were about to run out of the seven months allowed for the project and that an extension fee would apply. Freya was able to back down on that one.
We wanted a photograph on the back cover as well as the front, another £160.
On our final edit we asked for the two lines on the dedication page be in bold and the font size of the contents page be reduced so the at the contents list was on one page rather than two. If we wanted that done it would be an additional £678. Yes, £678 for something that my six year old great niece could do inside thirty seconds.
The grand finale was when we asked for additional copies. Just four hardbacks are included in the package. Any additional hardbacks would be £57 EACH and any paperbacks would be £45 EACH. And, Freya assured me, she had already applied 25% discount to arrive at these amounts.
Fortunately we did get the PDF and our local printer has done a fabulous, and very economic job with much better quality paper and definition than the hardbacks we received.
We are pleased with the end result but the process was tortuous, inflexible and expensive.
A great idea spoiled by greed and process. My suggestion would be to go with an independent writer and a local printer and not with Story Terrace,

This was a present from my children so I had no knowledge of how it was set up.My experience was that my writer could not cope with the detail required.The first draft document was produced by AI and had things in it that had never been raised in the interviews and the writer did not check it to correct the mistake, and I had to send it back to be redone.The proofreading did not pick up simple mistakes and managed to leave prose in that was unreadable.The standard templates are restrictive and they cannot be amended without further payment.
The automated emails and process charts apply unnecessary pressure to the client and are often in conflict with the information you get from your project manager.
Overall you have to spend much too much time monitoring the work they do and correcting their mistakes. However if you are prepared to put in the effort and have a good back up proofreader you can get them to produce a book at the end of it. I would however look to see if there were other options out there

Possibly just my experience as I see many good reviews, but the writer wasted my time, a huge amount of cash (around £4,000 - I didn’t pay the balance), and the last moments of my dad’s life, by writing… a paragraph, pretty badly, with material which I’d mostly provided and which wasn’t even accurate. I hope I’m just a one-off here, because I’m not only left gutted and distraught by the whole episode, but also seriously out of pocket. No response from the company when I reported this utter failure, and the writer just walked away as busy on other “works”… very sad and disappointing (for me).

I spent many years working in various countries around the world and my children really had little idea of what I did and what life was like in the countries in which I worked. They wondered what they would tell their children after I had died and so encouraged me to write my biography.

Story Terrace did a great job in helping me put together my life story from childhood in the 1950s until after I had retired. I like to think that my children, and my siblings, found it interesting and informative. I also found that it made me reflect more on what I had done and how it had influenced my whole to life.

From what would undoubtedly been a somewhat turgid read if it had been left solely in my hands, Story Terrace managed to make it more readable and engaging but yet managed to retain my way of expressing myself.

It was enjoyable to talk though my life with my writer. I was guided through the whole process was easy to follow and took seven months. I was very happy with the final version of the biography.

Thank you Story Terrace

I highly recommend this writer! Their expertise and experience shine through in their work. They are incredibly patient, attentive, and dedicated to delivering high-quality results. It was a pleasure working with them!

The team that was working with me made every step easy for me and I’m grateful, the experience was amazing and I’m happy to come back in the future and recommend it to everyone, my editor Freya Combes was amazing made every step of this journey easy guided me through thank you, my writer Victoria smith was great with her ideas, thank you, thank you everyone that was involved. :)

Another off my bucket list, thanks to all at Storyterrace, Beverley my writer and Freya the editor together we have produced a marvellous hard back book, my life story a wonderful gift for my children and grandchildren, any adjustments or amendments were quickly sorted, so a big thank you to everyone at Storyterrace.

I decided to write a book about my life after being diagnosed with terminal cancer so my daughters would be able to know more about me when I'm gone.

The process of interviews with your chosen writer was great and a easy way to do this. You have your own dedicated page on their website so you can see progress, comment and upload photos and give final approval.

The team were incredibly understanding of my diagnosis and moved deadlines out for me when I was too weak to work on the book and helped with putting the book in different formats rather than on the website when my eyes couldn't focus properly with the chemotherapy.

This book is very precious to me and the team knew that and treated is as special as I was - I can't thank them enough.

This was my first book with Story Terrace. The communication between the team and me was top notch. They took time to listen to what I wanted my book to showcase. Quick responses to queries. The interview process was seamless and the writer was superb in that she got the clear picture of what I wanted my book to be like. The project was completed much earlier than planned. I’m so thankful to the team at Story Terrace for bringing my story to life

This is my third book with story terrace and i loved the experience even more than the last one. They were so helpful,loved the interviews and the whole process was made very easy because of the amazing team xx thankyou

Excellent product. Very well organised and managed.

I have had a slightly different experience to the norm with story terrace as I already had my manuscript written. I was supported with editing and then self publishing. I have to admit, I was reticent initially and wasn’t sure able the process once I started. However, I was proved wrong and experienced a compassionate, flexible, understanding and thoughtful process with everyone I worked with at story terrace. Special thanks to Hariny and Victoria. I feel very grateful for the support I have had and can’t wait to see my book on the world stage. Thank you for everything. I am excited about the continued relationship as we progress further.

CATASTROPHIC!
A real scheme.
Nothing is real. They are there ONLY to take the maximun amount of money- and it is not cheap!- nothing is catered or personal. The authors are reandom and not professional and they tag along to chrage more to complete a project. At this end, it was so FRUSTRATING that we dropped everything! they did NOTHING!

It’s been a worthwhile journey but would like to have been able to do it all on the I pad rather than PC.I found all the Story Terrace staff helpful but many authors will be “aged” ( I am) & some people want to write it without bringing the kids & grandkids into the production side- mostly for the positive reason that they want it to be as nice surprise. The costs of a hard copy- 40 quid a pop are too high & that aspect needs restructuring.
The principle is very good & likely there will be more & more of the elderly using the service. You should review regularly making it easier for them.

I couldn’t recommend story terrace enough. It was a pleasure to work with all the people involved with producing my book from the start of the concept to the finished product. It has been a truly wonderful experience

After a slightly sticky start to my book (I blame AI) this was soon rectified by Terri Gordon who advised me to take a different route to the writing of my book.
Following on from this I enjoyed a trouble free, efficient and speedy conclusion to the writing of my book mainly due to the expert advice and help from my Project Editor Freya Coombes.
I was involved with all decisions including the lay out, title, photographs and colour. I am delighted with the finished product and would certainly recommend StoryTerrace to my family and friends.