Terms

What you’re buying

One story from one person’s life, told in a recorded phone conversation and turned into an illustrated children’s book. What each tier costs and what comes with it is on the pricing section of our home page. It is a one-time purchase. There is no subscription and we will not charge you again unless you place another order.

Fireside Tales is operated by Solstice Solutions LLC, an Illinois limited liability company. By ordering, you agree to what is on this page.

How it goes

• You pay, and we email you a link to a short intake form.
• You tell us who to call, when they are usually free, and what you would like the story to be about. You upload one or two photographs of them.
• You let them know it is coming, with a message we write for you to send.
• At one of the times you told us suits them, an AI interviewer calls and records a conversation of roughly thirty to forty-five minutes.
• We make the whole book and send it to you as a proof.
• You read it, change what you want, and approve it.
• Then the digital files are yours, and the hardcover — if you ordered one — is printed and shipped. We ship within the United States.

Your promise about your storyteller

This is the most important thing on this page. When you give us someone’s phone number, you are telling us that you know them, that the number is theirs and current, that you have their permission to give it to us, and that you have good reason to think they would be willing to take the call.

We will always tell them at the start that the interviewer is an AI, that you arranged it, and that we would like to record — and we ask before anything else. If they say no, or if it becomes clear they aren’t comfortable, we end the call warmly, tell you, and refund you.

Don’t use this to surprise someone who would not want it, to pressure anyone, or to obtain a recording of someone under false pretenses. If the details you gave us weren’t yours to give, that is on you, and you agree to cover any claim that comes of it.

If you record the story yourself, or send us a recording you already have, you’re telling us the person knew they were being recorded, that it wasn’t done in secret, and that it’s yours to give us.

Your storyteller’s rights

The person we interview is not a party to these terms, and they have rights with us anyway. They can decline the call, end it at any point, or ask us never to contact them again. They can ask us to delete their recording and transcript directly, without going through you.

We will honor a request from a storyteller even when it conflicts with what you have asked for. If they ask us to delete material we have already used to make your book, we will tell you what that means for your order and refund you if we can’t finish it.

The proof, and what approving it does

Nothing prints until you approve the proof. You see every page of text, every picture and the dedication first. Wording changes are free and there is no limit on them; picture changes are capped, and the numbers are on the refunds page.

Approving closes the changes. At that moment the book goes to the printer and we pay for it, so the wording and the pictures are settled and a change of mind is no longer a refund. Take your time before then — that is what the proof is for.

The book is an adaptation, not a transcript. We work from what your storyteller actually said and we try hard to keep their words and their details, but we do not guarantee that every fact in it is right. Checking that is what your review is for.

No person wrote the text and no person drew the pictures. The story is your storyteller’s; the writing and the illustrations are machine-made from it, and approved by you.

Refunds

The full policy is on the refunds page and forms part of these terms. In short: if the call never happens, we refund you in full and the refund starts on its own. Once your proof exists the remedy is changes to the book rather than your money back. After printing, a defect or a book that never arrives gets a reprint or a refund, your choice, for thirty days after delivery.

What you upload

Send photographs you have the right to send, of the person we are calling. Nothing unlawful, nothing of a child. The company that makes our illustrations applies safety filters we do not control, and now and then a perfectly reasonable request is refused by them. If that happens we will work with you on another way to draw it, and if we can’t make a book we would be willing to send, we will give your money back.

Who owns what

Your storyteller owns their story. Nothing here changes that. Our license to it is only what making your book requires — recording the call, writing and illustrating the book, printing it, and keeping your copies available to you.

You own your book. When your order is complete you have a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive right to use, copy, print and share it — the text, the pictures, the audio and the recording, whether we made it or you did — for your family’s own purposes. Order more copies, read it aloud, give it to a cousin, hand it down.

What you may not do is sell it, publish it for sale, or use what is in it to train an AI model.

We keep the Fireside Tales name and branding, this site, our prompts and the way the book is made and designed.

We will not use your book, your storyteller’s story, their voice or their photographs in our own marketing unless you and they both agree in writing, separately and specifically. If we ever ask, saying no changes nothing about your order.

What we don’t promise

We do this with care, and there are things nobody can promise. We can’t promise the call will go well or that your storyteller will be forthcoming — people and conversations are not predictable. If something on our side means we can’t finish your order, we will tell you and give your money back.

As far as the law allows, what we owe you for any claim arising out of your order is limited to what you paid us for it, and we are not liable for indirect or consequential losses. Nothing here limits anything that cannot be limited by law.

Where this is governed

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Illinois, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. We may update them; changes apply to orders placed after we post them, and the version in effect when you ordered is the one that governs your order.