The APH is a non-profit international trade association of skilled professionals passionate about preserving life stories.  BoehmGroup’s founder, Client Relations Managers, and most of our biographers belong to the Association of Personal Historians and adhere to their code of ethics when working with a client.

Milestone events such as weddings, anniversaries, birthdays, holidays, family reunions and retirements are great times to celebrate the completion of a biography project. Unfortunately, memories fade quickly, and when a person dies, so does their ability to share their stories first hand. So we recommend beginning a biography project as soon as possible, even if this is just the beginning of a longer process.

We strongly encourage you to consider which items and photos from your past you would like to preserve and store them safely NOW. See our Preservation Guide for help on this.

We also provide a Biography Planning Guide to help you organize your story and begin your biography.

Though it feels hard to know where to begin, take heart! You’ve already been recording your history. Every document you save, souvenir you keep, example of your work you store and letter or photograph you box up is a piece of your past, which you saved because it was important to you. These are the seeds of your biography. You can grow your story from there by using our Biography Planning Guide to help you decide what you want to say about your history and how you want to say it.

We also provide a free Preservation Guide, which describes how to preserve items like photos and letters.

Three time factors to consider are the availability of the biographic subject or interview subject, the project size, and how long it takes us (BoehmGroup) to do our work.  Listed below are the steps necessary to create a biographic book. 

For further information on these methods, or on other media, such as a DVD, visit our Creating Your Biography page.  When planning a project with a client, we factor in the interview subject’s schedule while encouraging steady progress through the following steps:

1)  Record the biographic interviews:  For a whole life story, this often takes 8-10 hours. These interviews are completed on a schedule according to the interview subject’s availability. The interviews can take as little as two days or can be spread over a number of weeks.
2)  Write the manuscript: A book manuscript is completed within five weeks of the last interview.
3)  Review for revision:  The interview subject/client reviews the text within an agreed-upon time period.
4)  Make revisions: The writer completes any changes within two weeks of the manuscript’s return.
5)  Edit the manuscript: A professional editor takes two weeks, on average, to edit a book.
6)  Do graphic design and layout:  We provide a “proof” of the first chapter for the client’s approval within one month of sending it in for design.  The time the client takes to approve the proof varies.  After the first chapter is approved, an additional month is needed to complete the book design and layout.
7)  Review and approve final proof: The interview subject/client completes this task within an agreed-upon time period.
8)  Complete printing and binding: Our client receives the printed books in about five weeks, including shipping.

The time a project requires can vary according to how quickly you choose to work with us and the size of your project and print order.  In most cases, you can expect the work that Boehm Biography Group does for a full-sized project to take five to seven months to complete. Video/DVD, audio history, and smaller projects can be finished much faster.  The client agreement for your project will spell out the agreed upon schedule for your project in some detail.

Fees vary widely and depend on the scope of the project. Some projects can be very labor intensive. To better understand the amount of labor involved with a biographical project, visit Creating Your Biography. 

You can also look at some of the examples on our Products and Services page.   Please feel free to contact us to ask any questions or get a free price estimate.

From what we’ve seen, getting started tends to be the hardest part of creating a biography, but Boehm Biography Group helps you determine the goals and the scope of your legacy project. Also, a biographer is a neutral listener—someone from outside the family—trained to draw you out and breathe life into your stories and preserve them.

Biographers come from a wide range of professions, including journalism, education, broadcasting, video, film, psychology, social work and medicine. Our Client Services Managers match you with a biographer who can best capture your story. 

Biography options are as diverse as the individuals involved. We can create books of various styles and lengths, photo books, artwork, video, audio CDs…. Creativity has no limit.

Combining your stories with our abilities, we help determine the options that best serve your needs and then we help shape your vision into reality. Take a look at some examples of our products and then imagine how we can craft the history you’d like to share into a treasured heirloom.

Though you may not think your life is all that interesting, wouldn’t you love to have a personal account of your great-grandparent’s life story? Biography not only provides a historical record of an era, but also offers insights into its social and cultural customs, political events and their effects on a person’s life. At the same time, a biography becomes a priceless legacy for current and future generations, showing the unique personality of an individual as they forge their way through life’s challenges and triumphs.

No one can tell these stories like the person who actually lived them, and no matter how “ordinary” a life may seem, readers both now and in the future will be inspired by the extraordinary life they lived.

While there are many forms of personal history, at Boehm Biography Group, a personal biography is written by a professional writer/biographer, or created by a professional videographer, who records the stories of your life in words or images.

A personal biography can create a vivid portrait of someone’s entire life in sharp detail, or it can act as a memoir focusing on a special event or period of time. It is a family history that brings ancestors to life through the stories and anecdotes behind the names on a family tree, and it shares your values and experiences for generations to come.