The Legacy Edition
And the story deserves the writing, the time and the object it would get if a great house decided it mattered.
Write to Raam AnandWhat it is
The Legacy Edition is Stardom Books' commission for leaders whose work spans decades: a memoir or a biography, written over a year from conversations held in person, produced as a numbered Collector's Edition and a full-colour trade edition, and published under our imprint in India, the United States and worldwide.
We take six such commissions a year, across both countries, and each is led by Raam Anand himself.
How it is made
Between sixty and a hundred hours with you, over the year, in your home or office or wherever the story lives, in conversations of two or three hours at a time. We also sit with the people who were there: family, partners, long-serving colleagues, up to a dozen of them if the story asks for it.
A researcher assembles the archive around you: records, letters, photographs, press across the decades. Every fact is checked against its source. Every conversation is recorded to studio standard and, with your agreement, filmed.
How it is written
A senior writer works under Raam's direction. The shape of the book is agreed before a line of prose is written; you read it three times in full, at the chapter plan, at the first complete draft, and at the final manuscript. The finished book runs to between 350 and 450 pages, with an index, a timeline, and the photographs, restored where they need it, laid out in colour.
If you would rather the book be written about you than by you, it is written as a biography, with Raam as its author and narrator.
How it is made into an object
One hundred copies, numbered and signed by you. Sewn, bound in cloth over boards with a single foil stamp, in a slipcase, on art paper throughout. Boxed and delivered to you, with further copies added to the run whenever you wish.
A full-colour jacketed hardback, published under the Stardom Books imprint with its ISBN, US copyright and Library of Congress registration, distributed in India, the United States, the United Kingdom and worldwide, with two hundred copies delivered to you. And the ebook.
What lasts beyond the book
Every conversation, transcribed and indexed, delivered privately to your family: the recordings of you telling your own story, in your own words, which no book can hold.
A thirty-minute documentary cut from the filmed sittings, with a short version for the launch.
A sitting with a photographer of standing in your city, for the book and for whatever comes after it.
In the city of your choice, which we plan and host with you, with the guests, the press and the programme handled by our team.
How long, and how it proceeds
From the first sitting to the finished editions. After the first two sittings you receive a sample chapter, so that you know, before the work goes further, exactly what you will hold at the end.
What we hold to
The copyright is yours. The royalties on every copy sold are yours, reported through your own author area. Confidentiality is signed before the first sitting and the archive belongs to your family. Nothing is published, in print or on film, that you have not approved.
By invitation and by conversation
A line about you and the story you have in mind is enough. Raam reads every note himself and writes back within two business days, usually to suggest a time to talk. Nothing you write here goes further than him.
