Corina Kellam is on the Move!

I founded the affordable memoir service Life History Books in late 2009 and we already have 45 personal historians bringing memoirs to the masses. They interview normal, everyday people about their lives and we turn their text and photos into gorgeous books.

Our personal historians conduct relaxed interviews and interview time is used however the client wishes. Clients talk and gather scannable mementos and we do the rest. Clients’ words are polished through gentle editing and rearranging and the final result is a stunning, archive-quality heirloom book filled with stories and pictures.

I don’t have an MBA and I’m not your typical executive. I hustle every day to grow my business as dramatically as I can, and I’ve found that thinking outside the box has gotten me my biggest wins.

Commission is at the heart of our success. We have partnerships with charities and companies who promote us – either with our brochures on the premises, in their newsletters or online – in exchange for a generous commission.

A lot of our profit comes from the add-ons: Audio CDs and additional photos. It’s important to me that there be an affordable book option for every budget, but I’ve been surprised to find that cost isn’t a huge issue for our typical client and most comment that we’re less expensive than we should be, adding on plenty of high-margin extras. I’d like to claim that was the plan all along, but I lucked into that one!

At the heart of everything I do is my deep desire to succeed and my ability to keep moving forward, always improving and never losing enthusiasm.

In the last two years I taught myself to build websites, designed all marketing materials myself and developed a sales plan. For me, seeing orders come in and seeing clients so incredibly happy with their books makes it all worthwhile. That sounds quite soppy, but it’s actually true.

My background is in broadcast and print news and I’ve worked in everything from national TV news in New York to financial print reporting in Los Angeles and London. I also dabbled in marketing, which was never really my passion, but taught me the value of defining and protecting your image and message.

I somewhat accidentally started Life History Books – the first book was a present for my sister’s wedding – but after those first orders came through, I realised that I was sitting on an incredible idea… and I ran with it!

Don’t quit your day-job. I know this is controversial, but I think clients and partners can smell desperation, so having a salaried pillow underneath you can be a big boost. If you get in four or five focused hours of work on your startup per day – working straight through the weekend – you can get your business in order and cope with unforeseen delays more practically. Also, when you launch, it won’t be because you need rent money, it’ll be because your business is actually amazing and ready for market.