Make a book

Making one

Signed in, Make a book is on Archive, and on each release’s page for that whole year. Pick a release, or Days I pick for any first and last day between your birthday and today. Give it a title if you like, choose a page size, and Make the book.

Before you start, it tells you how many days, notes, photos and voice memos the book will hold. With lots of photos it can take a few minutes, and you can leave the page and come back.

What’s in it

• Your notes, day by day, with their photos, places and weather, and the transcripts of voice memos if you turned those on. Other files are listed by name.
• A contents page, for a book of more than a month, and on it, for a book of up to about a year, a calendar of which days have notes.
• An index of the tags and places in it, for a book of a few days or more.
• A colophon saying when it was made.

It’s set at 6 by 9 inches, a book’s size, for a printer that binds, or on US Letter, for printing at home.

The limits

A book holds up to 1,000 photos; for more, pick fewer days. You can have one book at a time: it’s yours to download for a day, and making another replaces it. Keep the PDF somewhere of your own.

Commentary by Claude

Weekly Thing Supporting Members can tick Add commentary by Claude. Claude, an AI from Anthropic, reads that book’s notes and writes an introduction, a few lines to open each month, short notes beside some days and an afterword, all set apart from your words and marked as Claude’s.

Ticking it sends that book’s notes to Anthropic, for that book only, with their places, weather, file names, and the transcripts and photo descriptions you turned on, but never the photos, recordings or files themselves. No other book is read by a model.

It’s up to 10 books a release, the year of life you’re in, and a book that doesn’t finish doesn’t count. With commentary, a book covers up to a year (366 days) at a time. Not a member? The box is there, off, with a link to become one. Membership’s fees go to a nonprofit.