How Much Does a Memory Book Cost in Hong Kong?

From a hundred dollars to six figures, depending on what you actually want.

Almost nobody answers this question directly, so let us try. There are broadly four ways to keep a parent's story, and their prices sit far apart.

HK$100 to 300: the question journal

The "Mum, tell me your story" journals in bookshops and online, filled in by hand. Cheap, and a genuine start. But honestly: most of them come back with a few pages written and the rest blank. The questions cannot follow the person, and nobody is there to keep it going.

About HK$780 a year: the online subscriptions

StoryWorth, Remento and their kind, at about US$99 a year. They suit English-comfortable families; Cantonese-speaking elders usually stall. We wrote a separate honest comparison of the three.

Tens of thousands to six figures: private ghostwriting

Hiring a professional writer to interview, ghostwrite and edit a private memoir typically starts in the tens of thousands of Hong Kong dollars and can reach six figures. The results are beautiful. It is not most families' budget.

The middle, which is where we sit

A voice book sits between: a real person asks the questions and shapes the chapters, the result is a sewn cloth hardcover, every quoted line plays the original voice through a QR code, and it does not cost ghostwriting money.

We do not publish the exact price online. Not out of coyness: every family's situation is different, and we would rather hear about yours before quoting a number that fits it. Ask on WhatsApp, or come to the Tsim Sha Tsui studio, hold a real book, and ask in person.

How to think about the money

Spread over thirty years of being opened, a book costs less than a dollar a day. And the line we keep repeating because it is true: done too late, no amount of money buys this back.