The Line
$99 a year
One storyteller. Book download included, as many times as you like.
A gift for someone you love, or for yourself.
A phone number for our stories.
Call when a memory comes back, when something is on your heart, or to answer a prompted question. Nobody answers. Every call is recorded and written out for you to keep and pass along.
Works on any phone, even a landline. No app to download.
Mom’s stories
(888) 570-3981
ext. 123 456
Mom’s stories
(888) 570-3981
ext. 123 456
Any phone
One toll-free number and an extension that’s yours. Landline or mobile.
Call when it comes back
2am or Sunday afternoon, whenever a story surfaces, a moment needs capturing, or something is on your heart. Press 1 if you’d like a question to answer.
Yours to download
Every call is recorded and written out. Download it while the plan runs and for 90 days after. What you download is yours to keep.
A lifetime of memories
The card
A card for the fridge.
Every yearly plan and session comes with a 5×7 card, mailed in a plain envelope, plus a printable copy by email as soon as signup is done, so calling can start right away. The number and extension are on the front, so nobody has to look them up.
- Any phone, even a landline
- Nothing to install
- Mailed to your door
A number for our stories
Call anytime, day or night.
(888) 570-3981
Extension 123 456
vividly.family
The book
Every story, bound and printed.
The book is included with every plan, and you can download it as many times as you like. Each one holds everything recorded so far, so next week’s, next month’s or next year’s has more than the one before. Every story has its own code in the margin: scan it and you hear the call itself, and the code on this page works.
Print a real copy. Once there’s enough to bind, you get print-ready files and a short guide for ordering through Amazon KDP. No extra charge.
Or have one made. For a high-end custom memoir, we start with a session or more, then quote and curate it to what you want.
In a printed memoir, each story has its own code in the margin, linked to the recording of that story.
Pricing
Choose your line.
Family Line
$149 a year
Two storytellers, each with their own extension and archive. Book download included, as many times as you like.
Voice File
$249 a year
Two Lines, plus a USB drive for each storyteller at the end of each year, holding that year’s recordings and transcripts. Book download included, as many times as you like.
Every plan renews automatically. Cancel anytime. The year you’ve paid for keeps running to the end.
Want someone to ask the questions?
An interviewed session is a 75–90 minute recorded interview with a Vividly interviewer, and it includes a year of the Line (then $99 a year). $395.
Prefer to pay monthly? The Line is $19 a month and comes with a printable card by email. Cancel anytime.
What the Lines also do
Every Line sold helps someone else be heard.
5Lines
For every five Lines sold, someone in hospice care receives a Line free for 90 days. Anyone can refer them, and we confirm it with their hospice. The waitlist is private, and they consent on their first call, like everyone else.
10Lines
For every ten Lines sold, a veteran is interviewed, and the recording is prepared and submitted to the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress.
You buy it for your own family. Someone else is heard because you did.
Mom’s stories are all on here now. Thought of you —
vividly.family/k/…
Mom’s stories are all on here now. Thought of you —
vividly.family/k/…
Vividly Line
Recording
Take your time. Call back anytime.
What you hear
A short greeting. A beep. Your story.
- A short greeting. The first call also asks your consent to record.
- Press 1 if you’d like a question to answer.
or
- Just talk after the beep, in your own words. A pause to think is fine; about thirty seconds of silence ends the recording. Call back anytime, as many times as you like.
Loved by families.
For all ages
A grandmother’s recipe, told the way she actually makes it. A teenager on the night before the first day of school. Why you left home at nineteen, said at last.
Expecting and new parents
A dad-to-be talking to his child at midnight. A mom, still laughing, telling how she caught her three-year-old in the closet with a stolen cookie, and how she ran off grinning.
When it matters
After a diagnosis, some things should be said in your own voice. Before and during a deployment, call in a new bedtime story so it’s there to play at home each night.
Get the number
For yourself or someone you love. Tell us who’s recording, and we mail a card with the number and extension.
Call any time
Day or night, from any phone. Nobody answers. Just talk after the beep.
It’s recorded, dated and written out
Every call is saved with its transcript. Family you add can listen and download.
Questions
What people ask before they join.
Yes. The Line is $99 a year, or $79 for the first year while the founding places last. Family Line covers two storytellers for $149 a year — each with their own extension and their own archive — and the Voice File adds a USB drive for each of them at the end of every year, for $249 a year. Monthly is $19. Every plan renews automatically, and you can cancel anytime. Whatever has been recorded stays downloadable in ordinary formats while the plan runs and for 90 days after it ends.
No, and that is deliberate. A greeting plays, then a tone, and the storyteller talks for as long as they like. Nobody is listening in, nobody is waiting, and there is no appointment to keep.
People generally say more to a recording than to someone sitting across from them. A pause to think is fine. If the line goes silent for about thirty seconds the recording ends, keeping everything they said, and they can call back and carry on.
A few minutes. You pay, enter the storyteller’s name and phone number on the next screen, and their number and extension are issued straight away. The card for the fridge is printable immediately.
After that there is nothing to set up. They call when they want to, and the archive fills at whatever pace suits them.
They’re a different product, and for some families the right one. Those send a prompt and wait for someone to sit down and write. Vividly is a phone line — the storyteller picks up any phone, a landline included, and talks, at whatever hour the thought arrives.
Writing something down captures the facts. It does not capture the voice saying them.
No. Vividly is audio only, on purpose. A phone call is the least intrusive way to have this conversation, and a camera changes how people talk — someone who is elderly, unwell, or telling you something difficult tends to say less with one in the room.
The voice is the part worth keeping.
Then it helps to know there is nobody to be uncomfortable in front of.
Nobody answers the Line. There is no interviewer, no appointment, and nothing to get right. They dial the number, enter their extension, hear a short greeting and a tone, and then talk. The recording does not interrupt and does not ask a follow-up. A pause to think is fine; about thirty seconds of silence ends the recording, and they can simply call back.
Most people who dislike the phone dislike being heard on it. There is nobody on the call at all — who can listen afterwards is a separate choice, and it is theirs.
The spoken prompts and the weekly questions are in English.
Nothing constrains what goes on the tape. A storyteller can record in whatever language they like, and it is kept exactly as spoken. The transcription attempts whatever it hears, but we have not tested it in languages other than English, so we are not going to tell you it works.
If you need another language, write and tell us which one. That is how we find out it is wanted. It is not a promise that we can provide it.
Nothing on the Line pushes. There is nobody asking a follow-up, so a subject that stays closed simply stays closed.
A weekly question can be skipped — reply SKIP if it came by text — and it is not asked again. On the Line nothing is read out unless they press 1 to ask for a question. Anything they would rather nobody heard can be set to private in the portal.
Some of the best material arrives after a pause, and a pause to think is fine. About thirty seconds of silence ends the recording, keeping what was said, and they can call back whenever they are ready.
The storyteller, whoever paid for it. Once they have an email address the archive is in their name, and they choose who can listen, who can manage access, and who it passes to. Until then, the person who gave it holds it in trust for them.
Email hello@vividly.family with the storyteller’s name and the date of the recording, or the code or link printed beside it in the book. We’ll listen for your spoken consent on the recording. If it isn’t there, we’ll remove the recording, and its code stops playing, even in a book that’s already been downloaded.
Everything already recorded stays theirs — the audio, the transcripts and the archive, downloadable in ordinary formats.
When the paid time runs out the line stops taking calls. Listening, reading the transcripts and downloading carry on for 90 days after that, so there is time to download everything, and whatever has been downloaded is theirs to keep.
Yes. Buyer and storyteller are separate from the start: you get the receipt, they get the recordings and the archive.
If it is a surprise, a checkbox at signup holds back the email and text that would otherwise tell them about it, so you can hand it over yourself.
What cannot be held back is the consent. They agree to being recorded in their own voice on their first call, and nobody can do that for them.