Elizabeth Judge tells how a marketing man tapped into the biography business.

The Times, Saturday August 3 2002

Mike Oke, 40, can remember vividly the time he set off to do a weekly supermarket shop with only £7 to spend.  In one week he had lost his job and set up his own small business, a private biography service that helps ordinary people write their life stories.

It was a very exciting time, but it was quite a difficult one financially. You just have to learn to cope with what you have. I think generally people are much too extravagant.”

Eleven years on and the company, Bound Biographies, is a thriving business, nearing production of its 100th book. In those years he has helped all kinds, from head teachers and civil servants to traffic wardens, chief executives and one he is particularly proud of—the highest ranking woman in the RAF—to commit their lives to paper for the enjoyment of friends, family and future generations.

His only writing qualification, he confesses, is an English A level but his former job, in the marketing section of a computer company, supplied him with the skills to produce enjoyable copy from a variety of subjects and he has learnt a great deal on the job.

I didn’t want to be a ghost writer as I realised the person’s voice and character, and all their little verbal idiosyncrasies, just don’t come through properly that way,” he says. “Instead, I prompt and guide people to write the book themselves, which can be a difficult business with British people because they are so terribly modest about their achievements. I am an enabler but I also have to be a bit of a bully.”

At a series of monthly meetings he encourages his subjects, most of them over 50, to spill the beans on every important episode of their lives. Popular old songs and tapes of 1940s and 1950s radio shows are often used as aids to prompt recollections. Clients then do their “homework” and write up what was discussed. Mr Oke takes away all latest instalments to type into and edit on his computer at home in Bicester, Oxfordshire. One year later, the author’s words are transformed into a leather-bound edition.

His clients, often seeking a project for their retirement days, find that the process is therapeutic, he says. Some have a more tragic reason for chronicling their lives. One was a teenager who was fighting a battle against leukaemia. He died aged 19.

The subject’s close relatives often discover a few surprises, he admits.

Quite often people have bits of their past which they have never told even to their husbands or wives. It just takes someone a bit more distanced to coax it out."

Clients pay around £3,000, with an additional £300 for each meeting with Mr Oke, and when the requests are pouring in he can now make about £30,000 a year, which is “decent, if nowhere near what I could be earning in a conventional job."

But the fear of being penniless again has never left him, particularly now that he and his wife and bookkeeper, Mychelle, have a nine-month old daughter, Katharine, to look after.

We always hold back money from the good months to ensure we have enough when things are quieter,” he says.  “But we may have to put up the prices now baby has come along."

In an ideal world his clients would pay by direct debit, instead of one-off payments, to smooth out the cashflow.  But he realises that many would be put off if that was required.

Many people want a few trial sessions before they pay me anything, and with most of my clients being a bit older, I don’t want to be seen preying on them.  But nobody has to pay a penny if they are not happy with the final product."

He admits that promoting the service, even for a seasoned marketing expert, has been a steep and expensive learning curve.  “I tried country shows, old people’s homes, Women’s Institute meetings and genealogy magazines, but many of them proved wrong for this service.

Genealogists, for example, are not interested in a complete and final book, as their hobby is to keep searching for more information about their past.”

He now concentrates on a few areas that he know bring him custom.

As the company has grown he has been glad to outsource some of the tasks, including the endless hours of typing.

It is much more economic for me to concentrate on promotion and visiting clients than on typing - though I still often find myself up to the early hours tidying up manuscripts.”

He has recently taken on board a franchisee, a project he is eager to develop.

With more franchisees I could spend more time growing the business and concentrating on aspects like marketing.

There are 18 million people out there over 50, so I have not even begun to scratch the surface of the market for this."

For all the problems he has encountered, he now cannot envisage doing anything else.

My father still asks me when I am going to get a proper job but I feel honoured to be doing this. I have forged so many bonds with people and made so many friends.”

Survival Tips

You must be passionate about your business because when you are putting in so many hours you need to be all-consumed by it to make it a success.”