Ever wondered what it takes to immortalize your life's journey in the pages of a book? That's exactly the transformation I've undergone, shifting from the dizzying heights of Wall Street to the grounding realm of storytelling. In a candid revelation, I unfold the tapestry of my own narrative, sharing the epiphany that everyone has a riveting tale to tell and the birth of my venture to encapsulate these legacies. We venture into the delicate craft of biography and memoir writing, peering into the complexities and the profound impact of capturing personal stories in the ever-evolving digital landscape.
In the company of Joseph from StorySavor we amplify the narrative further, underscoring his company's heartfelt mission to bring the art of biography within reach of all. Diving into Joseph's world, we explore how Story Saver tears down the barriers once reserved for the elite, enabling every voice to echo through the annals of history. His insights into guiding clients in selecting the ideal wordsmith to narrate their life's script, and the subsequent journey to sharing these chronicles with the world, will inspire anyone looking to cement their story for generations to come. Join us for an episode that not only illuminates the intricate process behind personal storytelling but also celebrates the unspoken chapters of our lives.
After my third novel, I realized I wanted something different – rather than inventing fictional stories I wanted to hear real ones. I started interviewing people and I quickly discovered that everyone has a story to tell but not everyone is a storyteller.
I launched a website in 2013 to share these stories. With each story, the website gained more followers. I learned there is a great fascination in the untold stories of others.
I interviewed dozens of people including:
A man who was part of General Patton’s ‘Red Ball Express’ – a famed truck convoy system that supplied Allied forces moving quickly through Europe after breaking out from the D-Day beaches in Normandy.
A man from New Zealand who overcame cerebral palsy to become a world-famous inspirational Ted Talk speaker.
A blind Syrian refugee who moved to America without speaking any English and lived on the streets of Los Angeles and New York City while pursuing his dream of attending Harvard University.
Through this process, I realized I loved connecting with people and sharing their stories – yet I was still self-conscious that I’d never been trained as a journalist. I wanted to improve my craft – to be the best storyteller possible – so I applied to Columbia Journalism School, and much to my surprise, I was accepted! Three years later I graduated as a professionally trained and published journalist.
I founded StorySavor to connect people with professional writers so they can capture their stories too. I’m excited to bring the gift of professional storytelling to people because I know that through stories, we understand ourselves and the world we live in.
About Joseph Quaderer
Joseph Quaderer is a graduate of The University of Notre Dame (BA in finance), New York University Stern School of Business
Purchase my book "Farmers and Nobles" here or at Amazon.
Speaker 1:
Good morning Bob. I'm very happy to be here and excited to chat with you today. Yeah, I wasn't bankrupt. Yeah, I was just chatting about that. I'm a big fan of the company and I'm very pleased now that Morgan's family yeah, so it's always interesting.
Speaker 1:
People are curious to hear how I started out as a banker on Wall Street and now I own a company that helps people write biographies and memoirs. And kind of the way that I explain it is that I say my life was kind of split between my profession and my passion. So my profession was always finance. I went to University of Notre Dame out in South Bend, indiana, and I studied finance there. I got an MBA in finance and strategy from NYU and then I was a banker for 17 years. But really my passion ever since I was a kid was writing. I started out writing short stories and poetry. I won some award although I cannot find it. There was some local newspaper I won a poetry award for and I was so excited as a kid although I've not been able to locate that newspaper and verify my claims. But yeah, I wrote poetry, short stories, novellas, and after college I wrote three novels. And this is obviously what I was a banker, a full-time banker.
Speaker 1:
After I finished my third novel and this was maybe like 2013, 2014, I realized that I no longer wanted to invent stories in my head and share them in books, that I wanted to interview real people and share their stories with others. And so I started a blog where I literally walked around the streets of Manhattan on the weekends on my time off and I walked up to everyone, from men in three-piece suits to homeless people, and I asked them stories and questions about their lives. And, you know, I discovered through this process that everyone has a story to tell, but that not everyone is a storyteller, and also that there's an intense interest in the untold stories of others. And so I started, you know, just posting these stories on my blog and ended up getting about one and a half million reviews of my stories. And I also realized through this process that what I was doing, you know, interviewing people and sharing their stories, was journalism and so sort of on a whim, I decided to apply to Columbia Journal from school I think it's the only Ivy League Journal from the program and I was like you know, there's no way in a million years we get in, you know, because when I was at the information session, a lot of the other people that were applying had interviewed heads of state and presidents and cabinet members, and I spent most of my time, you know, interviewing homeless people on the weekends, so it was a little bit different than the typical candidate. Much of my surprise, I got into Columbia Journalism School and then, from 2018 to 2021, I became a professionally trained and published journalist, and in 2021, it was sort of a chance conversation I had with a friend of mine who knew of my novel background, my novel writing background, my journalism background and my business background, and suggested that I start a company that helps people capture their life stories. And so that's what I did. That was back in 2021, and so a little over two years later, still going strong, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:
Now it's one thing we always say I was like and I'll put you the quote now but there's a George Orwell quote where he says something long lines of like writing a book is like a long, exhausting struggle with, like something you cannot control or understand and nobody would undertake that initiative. Now it's like a long, painful bout with an illness. Nobody would undertake that initiative unless they were driven by demons. They cannot withstand or they cannot suppress or ignore. So, basically, that wasn't a very good job of paraphrasing, but it's a very torturous process to write a book. So we make it easy for our clients. We do all the hard work. All they have to do is agree to be interviewed by us on the phone and we do the work in person.
Speaker 1:
Sound bad. Yes, there's another really good quote I love quotes and it says that, um, death steals everything except your story, and it will steal those two if you're not careful. And the reality is that, um, you know everything pretty much about somebody disappears in two to three generations If you don't record it. We're still reading Leonardo da Vinci's sketchbook from five to six hundred years ago, but, you know, typically for your average person, you know, once your direct family passed in the way, that's it. And so it's really important for us to help people preserve those stories. And, uh, you know, just, it's it's incredibly important work.
Speaker 1:
And the other thing, I'll say that it's interesting. You know, back in the day, we could. You know, people also have things like notebooks. They would record, you know, they would have journals or diaries, they would have photo albums, they would have postcards, they would have physical, tactile things that we could remember them by. Nowadays, we don't have that. You know, everything is like in the ether of the internet it's in text messages and emails, and so, interestingly enough, even though we've never been more connected, even though data has never been more at our fingertips, it's now more important than ever to make a concerted effort to say these things in the ephemeral world that we live in, and so it's really important to keep up.
Speaker 1:
Mm, hmm, really, yeah, and you know, interestingly enough, we work with an archivist to you know, we write people's stories. Sometimes we'll write what I call tribute books about people have passed away, and so we're just interviewing remaining family members, and one interesting thing is that, when it comes to using the archivist, the publicly available information typically beat. Further back we go the easier it is to get information. So if somebody said my somebody came over in 1918 versus 2018, what would be an easier way for the archivist to get documentation? Because of the nature of how it's seriously, things were stored in the paper copies that were kept, it's actually easier to get things from 1918 and 2018. Ironically enough, so you know, and obviously if you go back into, like you know, the 1600s, it's going to be more difficult for the people that we're dealing with for our life today and want to hear the stories of their you know, their grandparents or grandparents. You know, though I say I'm sure you can't find anything. You know because my grandpa came over in 1940 and said no, actually counterintuitively, that's better.
Speaker 1:
So a little fact that I learned we do so if it's if it's a living person, then you know, sometimes it'll be just as simple as sitting down and agreeing to be interviewed by us and then we will write their story. You know the writers at source, david, of 75 writers they've right for the New York or the New York Times, to Washington post, the Atlantic, on and on. So in some instances, you know, we'll just interview somebody and then you'll have a professional writer capture story. But you're right, we also will occasionally hire professionals that will pull publicly available information. So you know, we've got World War Two draft cards, marriage certificate, death certificate.
Speaker 1:
One of my personal favorites is that a lot of people that immigrated to the United States that went through Ellis Island. It's very simple for us to find them and see the actual shipman at best that they arrived on, and you can see where their name was. So we were able to get that for people. And then anything that's census information is also interesting to see. You know in 1955 or whenever the census was, you can see at that time, you know what your great-grandparent indicated as their source of income or things like that. And then anything else publicly available, for example like these articles over in the top. It's not only interviewing people that are alive when we're writing tribute books, but also leveraging an archivist will publicly available information and to fill in the gaps where people don't have the answers to some of the questions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was now.
Speaker 1:
It's about a gentleman by the name of Aldo. We'll just mention his first names, aldo. That's when in 1988. And I'm happy to tell you a little bit about Aldo's story. But sort of a legend in the family and his grandson had always been fascinated to know what the whole story was Like. He'd heard things you know. So my client was probably six or seven when his grandfather passed away and he had always revered his grandfather. He'd always heard these fantastical stories and wanted to know what the real truth was. You know what was the actual story. So he hired us to write his grandfather's story and we cobbled it together from interviews of probably five or six remaining people that were alive, as well, as we hired a professional archivist to pull publicly available information, and so that's why we did it. And then, yeah, and how we did it, I have to tell you the story too. It's kind of a cool one, oh, really, yeah.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, that's playing back part, because he, you know his thought process was, you know, as you said, he was a valid fascist. Love Benito Mussolini. And it's funny, like you know, obviously nowadays you hear that instinctively. You know you think it must have been a bad person, but I think at that time it was. You know, mussolini was the first person that had trained like running on time and the society functioning in a certain way, and so I think it was that aspect of it that attracted all those to him. So, yeah, so he was.
Speaker 1:
You know, fought in World War II, I think, greece and Yugoslavia, was shot in the knee, contracted malaria, all these things, and really did not want to come to the United States. You know his wife was trying to lure him there and that when he was meeting with the consulate in Rome, he said that he was a fascist and he thought that the person interviewing him would say well, if you're a fascist, you're not coming to America. And instead the officer. He pointed to all the other Italians in the room and said each one of these people is a fascist. You are the only one that was truthful. You'll make a great American and you know, next thing he's on a boat to America. So I guess it is a lesson, I guess, in always telling the truth, and also that sometimes there are unintended consequences of actions.
Speaker 1:
So basically, what we do is the first thing would be consultation, where we would, I always tell people, when somebody speaks to me, they're always talking about what the story is. You know, I did this and I did that and I did when here, and this is what I accomplished. And these are the trials and tribulations that I went through. And I always listen patiently because that's obviously important to understand and these are typically very deeply meaningful stories. And I always say to people I said I say so, that's the, what I want to know, the why. You know, why do you want to tell that story? And you'll get wildly different responses.
Speaker 1:
Some people will say I want to capture this story because I'm getting older or my mother is getting older. I want to capture their story and I want it only to be shared with our family. This is an intensely private thing, and I'll meet others that say I want to be a New York Times bestseller, you know, and they want to write a memoir. That's going to be the next big thing. It's important for me to understand what the story is and why, and we can help people regardless of which path they want to go forward with. But it's important for me to understand from the outset what their intentions are and to make sure that we're being realistic.
Speaker 1:
But if, once I understand the story, what I'll do is I'll reach out to my 75 professional writers, as I mentioned to you before. These are writers that you know, the highest level of skill, writing for some of the best newspaper and magazines in the country, and I'll conduct a writer search based on what story the client wants to tell and why they want to tell it. And I kind of want to give a simple example. Let's say somebody said, hey, I went to the you know, the 1982 Olympics. Now I want to write about that story. And I'll say, okay, well, I have somebody that wrote for ESPN, somebody that writes for sports illustrated, somebody that writes for the sporting news, and I'll come back to the client and I'll say these three people have specialized in writing sports stories for like three very vulnerable publications. Here's their background, here's what they've written, here's what they want to write, and then the client can interview them. Figure out which writer you know, because it's not only you know what you've accomplished, but some of it's just that personal meshing. Make sure that that occurs. And then once they select the writer, then we're really up to the races and the writer will conduct interviews with the client.
Speaker 1:
Or if we're writing a tricky book for somebody that's halfway with the remaining people, like conduct interviews over the phone, typically like an hour a week. It can be exhausting to be interviewed. You know I remember, as when I was studying journalism at Columbia, you know you'd interview somebody and it can be very exhausting when people think like you know, I'll sit down and tell you my life story over eight hours doesn't really work like that from my experience, and so I think some people, it can be an exhausting experience, particularly if you've never been interviewed. So let's just do it an hour per week, and so we'll set up an interview schedule with our clients for an hour per week. After that, the writer will write the story, khan will get to review the first draft, add photos and captions. We will format it for a book, send them the final proof and then, once they give us the go ahead, we will actually publish their book.
Speaker 1:
Now, I mentioned to you when I asked about why some people say I just want, I just want four copies from my grandkids and that's it. I want to burn the manuscript right. And other people they want assistance with not only getting it published on, you know, like Amazon, which we can do, but they won't help marketing it. And for people who have a desire to have a book read commercially successful, I say, sadly, the easy part about writing this book is writing the book. The hard part is what comes after the marketing it. Mcdonald's does not make the best hamburger in the world, but it markets so much that you know everyone buys McDonald's hamburgers, right. So we have marketing partners who, after we write it, edit and publish it, they can promote it and help get the word out. But yeah, that's pretty much the process we like to, you know, sort of say, from soup to nuts, we do everything you know from just all the kind of degrees, to be interviewed and, you know, a few months after they start with us we'll deliver them beautiful keepsake books. That I judge if my company was successful is that in seven years they're sitting on their grandkids coffee table somewhere after I'm long done. But yeah, that's the process too, uh huh, yeah, yeah. So I mean so.
Speaker 1:
Are you looking to write this historical fiction with a ghostwriter or you're just speaking primarily for yourself? Yeah, I mean. So I'll say two things. Number one is I just finished an illustrated novel for a client. I typically don't take on projects myself. When I first started my company I did. I would take on projects. I just typically don't anymore. But I took on an illustrated novel and it's a very, very different process than writing nonfiction, as you might imagine. I don't want to. I won't get into too much work. Currently the book is being illustrated and then it will be published and hopefully successful.
Speaker 1:
But you know it took a lot spits and starts to get the voice and the story correct for the client. Client gave me you know you just mentioned a book that you liked about the character development, and the client gave me a book and then I wrote a first draft based off of what I thought the client was looking for. That was so wildly off that it was pretty much embarrassing, right, because I thought I was delivering exactly what the client wanted and he said, no, that's absolutely not that's. I think we all have the patience and the grace to say, okay, this is the starting point. Now we understand we don't want to work towards what we want, and I think the so, through a very iterative process, we're able to get to a place where, working with a ghost writer, I was able to write the illustrated novel that that she always wanted. But it's a very iterative approach. I think you really have to be aligned, both be committed to the end result in order for it to work out.
Speaker 1:
But in terms of character development, to answer that question more specifically, I've never been formally trained as an office, but I have read about the art of writing fiction and I always remember that there's a difference in round and flat characters. A flat character is just, you know, the dashing guy that's a very successful businessman and very debonair, some characters, somebody that has all those attributes but is deeply insecure, or you know, in other words, whenever I'm building characters, I'm sure that as human beings, there's nobody that's perfect. We are all flawed, deeply flawed, and so I literally will chart out what are the positive attributes, what are the reasons that the character exists, and then I will intentionally think of what negative traits give them so that they become more relatable. It is absolutely not relatable. You know what I mean the protagonist for is just everything that's perfect about him or her, and it's just like you become bored with it. You don't know why, and it's because it's not realistic.
Speaker 1:
You know, one of my recent favorite novels that won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize was Donna Tartt's the Goldfinch and the main character of that book. It's a massive book. I think it's like 500,000 words. The main character of that book is very tripping, but it's so deeply flawed and I don't even think you know you don't even like them really at the end of the book, but it's relatable. So that'd be my one thing is to create round characters that are, you know, more diverse set of characteristics and make sure that you've got plenty of flaws.
Speaker 1:
Come on 3. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and I think you know all I mean. I guess, by definition, this is an obvious statement, but all fiction derives from real life. You know every single book that's ever been written either derives from something that occurred I would say there's only two places or a derivative of something else that they read in literature, right? And so, yeah, I think that's a marvelous starting point for a historical fiction novel. Yeah, sure.
Speaker 1:
So the company name is Story Saver and that's S-T-O-R-Y, which is probably obvious but might not be obvious. It's spelling for the second word, which is S-A-V-O-R, so Story Saver, not only saving stories but allowing people to save them and appreciate them. So, wwwstoriesavercom, and my email is Joseph at storiesavercom. And you know, I guess one of the last things I'll say, bob, is you know, our company mission is to democratize the biography-writing process, right? And what does that mean? It sounds cool, but what does that actually mean? It means that historically, you needed to be rich or famous by their story capture for your children and your grandchildren and your sojourn. And we're making it affordable to, you know, regular people to have their story captured. And so that's really, that is really the goal of my company and it is a passion of mine to help people capture their stories. So, you know, for people that are looking to do that, please don't hesitate to reach out. You know we do free consultation, kind of let you know what we can and can't do and pricing and whatnot, and it's, you know, it's an investment and it's a process, but we are deeply meaningful and I certainly enjoy working with clients doing this more than I did as a banker Someone more gratifying to help people capture life stories, not to talk ill of banking. But yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know it's one other thing I'll say, bob.
Speaker 1:
It's like sometimes people will reach out to me and will say why do I need to hire a company to write my family story or to write my story? Like, why shouldn't I do it? And I always I give them they're probably not expecting. I said, if you have the skill and the discipline to write and the time to write your story, you should, because nobody I don't care who you hire you can hire the best ghostwriter in the world. Nobody will ever care about your story more than you do and nobody will ever write your story as good as you can if you have the skill, the time and the discipline.
Speaker 1:
But the reality is that most people might not have one of those three things, in which case it doesn't work out, in which case you hire a professional and that's when we're happy to come in. I literally speak with people every single day, people that are from 37 years old up to 91, who say they have their whole life wanted to capture their life story. They just never got around to it. So that's when you hire a professional and let us do the hard work and you just have to tell your stories. Yeah, absolutely, thank you.
