By Jack Cumming

Most of my emails are spam, but one such spammer recently caught my eye. I actually read it before deleting it, and what I read sent my mind into an AI (artificial intelligence) frenzy of imagination.

Since it would take a full year to test it out … at a price of $99 … I just let my mind run freely. I didn’t want to wait a year to get this tale to you. My imaginings may inspire you toward better storytelling. This brand-new undertaking was first revealed on February 6, 2025, in the Financial Post.

What’s the Deal?

What would your family give for an autobiography of your great-grandfather? I know because my cousins spent beaucoup dollars to publish my great-grandfather’s memoir. His name was Ed Edelblute, and his story was titled Caribou Ed, about his life in the pre-Civil War Wild West. When it came to me, I read it avidly. Now, Daniel Horowitz wants you to be able to have such a book for your progeny.

Here’s the offer from Daniel Horowitz and MyStories: $99 buys a one-year membership, including story prompts and one hardcover, full-color, printed book. Digging deeper reveals that the idea is for MyStories to email you a question about your life once a week. Weekly examples:

  • What are you proudest of in your life?
  • What’s one of the earliest memories from your childhood?
  • When you think of the word “home,” what place comes to mind?

The Process

Now, here’s where my imagination has to take over. I picture signing up. $99 for a custom-written book seems fair enough. I have to believe that I can order extra copies for everyone in my family, assuming that I want my book to be about me.

To start, MyStories sends me a weekly email asking, say, “Where were you born? When? And who were your parents?” Those questions are fair enough, so I dash off a quick answer. I’ll use myself here as a guinea pig.

I was born on September 9, 1936, at about 2 o’clock in the afternoon at home in South Orange, NJ. There’s a story about that.

My parents had a reservation for me to be delivered at Orange Memorial Hospital in Orange, NJ, but my mother had had a prolonged labor with my older sister. She didn’t want to languish in labor in the hospital, so she put off going to the hospital until it was too late.

Dr. Cameron came to the house, turned to my father, and said, “Boil water. The baby is coming.” My dad got the cocoa pan and boiled a cup or two of water. Confronted with that, Dr. Cameron said, “No, that’s not enough. We need gallons of boiled water.”

With that, the birth took place. My dad, an avid amateur photographer, took a picture that he labeled, “Jack at 19 minutes old.” I’m sure the doctor was pleased.

Then, it was off to the hospital. The Record Ambulance Company came, and Dad saved the check he wrote for $5 to pay for the transport. Remember, this was 1936, and our nation’s economic policy is continuous inflation.

There was a problem with the hospital since the reservation was for only one person, my mom, and there were two of us arriving. After a kerfuffle, though, we were admitted, and the first 10 days of my life were spent in that hospital. Again, this was 1936, and a 10-day hospital confinement was customary then for a birth.

I confess that was easy to throw together; it could go on much longer. Here’s what I imagine MyStories does with that. This is only imagining and may go far beyond what they actually do, but I can only speculate. I’m guessing that AI (artificial intelligence) receives my response and combines it with standard questions to personalize my questions for the succeeding weeks.

What’s Next?

Moreover, I’m guessing that AI puts off formatting the book until enough weeks of autobiographical information have been received to begin to build a coherent narrative. The AI model may even wait until the full years’ worth of weekly submissions are in hand. AI can easily build a book like that without the need for human intervention.

Now comes the fun part. While AI can ghostwrite the book with almost no human intervention, the copier industry has miraculously created print-on-demand machines to manufacture the physical book.

Creating a Kindle edition is easy to picture in your mind, but you may not have known how simple it can be to provide a physical book if you have the right equipment. There are several competing machines for this process, one of which is the Espresso Book Machine, A Xerox Solution (PDF). Click to learn how a book can be completed while you enjoy a cup of espresso.

Intellectual Property

If I look at the MyStories offering with a Shark Tank investor’s eye, I want to know how the MyStories process is protected from copycats. My best guess is that it’s not and that Daniel Horowitz and his associates are hoping to get the jump on the market quickly enough to dominate.

CBS’s Steve Hartman says, “Everybody’s got a story.” Preserving those stories can be a positive undertaking for senior living. Imagine how life-enriching such a project can be for your residents.