Upon request, I will also give you a briefer condensation of the obituary for the purposes of newspaper publication at no extra charge. Newspapers will charge by the column inch, column line, or word, and this can be quite expensive. I am happy to tailor specifically a version of the obituary with budget constraints in mind — at no extra charge.
Also, upon request, I will be happy to email the final obituary to organizations mentioned in it should you desire. I use my skills as an experienced publicist to ferret out appropriate people and their email addresses to help spread the news of your loved one’s passing to people who might have known them who might otherwise not see the obituary. Again, I do this at no charge to you, time permitting.
THIS IS MISSION-CRITICAL WORK PERFORMED RELIABLY ON DEADLINE.
Terms:
1. Fee, payment method and acceptance of terms offered on this page
You must pay my $250 fee to engage my services in drafting, editing to your satisfaction, and rendering a final draft of an Obituary for your loved one. You pay my fee by paying the Square Invoice I send you by email before I start writing your speech. I will not commence work unless and until I have been paid.
We mutually understand and agree that when you pay my fee, you accept the terms that appear on this page.
2. What you must do
I am available for consultation by text message and telephone at 512-940-0298.
You will need to gather some information about your loved one, including a resume or curriculum vitae if available, and any other information you think might be pertinent to your loved one’s obituary. You will also need to set time to think about what made your loved on the person he or she was — memories, stories, and factual information — that I will speak to you about in telephone call(s) that I will record and transcribe to help me write the obituary.
You must make yourself reasonably available to me while I write and refine the obituary to your satisfaction. Once I have the information I need, the writing process moves rapidly — I may call you with an occasional brief question while completing the first draft, and we will work together to allow me to edit it until it is just right. If you are unable to consult with me in a timely manner, my delivery of the final obituary will be delayed.
My aim is to get your memories flowing candidly, and to capture them as they occur to you, which is why I will record our telephone calls, so I don’t miss anything (I delete the recordings afterward). The nature of the questions I will ask you are framed from the premise that people know one another through the experiences they share together. I often find something about your loved one’s life that stands out that might not have been immediately apparent or obvious to you, which might reveal the thread — the theme — that weaves his or her story together.
Although oriented towards my eulogy and remembrance speechwriting, you might find it helpful to review the questionnaire (54 questions) I ask to gather information when I am engaged to write a eulogy speech on this page: Remembering Your Loved One (youwillrememberme.com). I suggest that you – perhaps in consultation with others who knew your loved one well – read my stories and the questions and allow yourself time to think about and talk together about what I am asking before you I interview you.
2. The scope of the task
I will write the obituary speech based entirely on the information about your loved one that you provide to me, supplemented by information I can find out about them through Internet research..
I will deliver a first draft of the Obituary within 24-48 hours of our telephone interview. I will work with you as much as reasonably needed to get the obituary right. It is very important to both of us that this writing is as nearly perfect as it can be, since it honors someone you love.
3. Delivery conditions
I will deliver the draft and final draft of the obituary via email, in the body of the email or as an attachment, a portable document file (Adobe pdf format).
My standard deadline to deliver the final draft of your 48 hours after I have received your answers in our telephone interview. If your deadline must be shorter, and depending on my schedule at the time, I may be able to work within a shorter deadline, but I cannot guarantee this. It never hurts to ask.
4. Copyright
We mutually understand that this obituary is a work “made for hire” and that the copyright to the words shall belong to you exclusively. You may use these words for any purpose you choose beyond publishing it on a funeral home website, including printing it in a program or publishing any or all of it as an obituary, synchronizing it with video programming, or any other use you might choose.
If I should use someone else’s words, including my own, within this obituary, I will indicate that in the speech with proper attribution, and if the quote is given to me by you, I will use my best efforts to double-check that the person the quote is attributed to is actually the person who said the quote. I avoid plagiarism – presenting others’ words as my own – the way we (used to) avoid the Plague.