Paper Lake vs My Story Tale

At a glance

Both companies print in Australia. Both offer personalised children's books. After that, the products diverge sharply. My Story Tale is a Melbourne-based template service with 70-plus titles, optimised for volume and aggressive paid distribution. Paper Lake writes every story from scratch and draws illustrations from a real photo of your child. The price gap reflects the work gap.

My Story Tale review

My Story Tale has put a serious amount of money behind Google Ads in Australia. Internal Paper Lake competitor monitoring (April 2026) recorded the brand sitting at roughly 51 percent impression share for personalised-book queries in AU, which is why most readers searching for this comparison have already seen the ads. The brand visibility is real and well earned through media spend.

Behind the ads sits a perfectly legitimate Melbourne business. The catalogue is broad: birthday titles, sibling stories, occasion books, animal adventures, and licensed-feel spinoffs. Books print and ship locally, which means buyers avoid the 2 to 4 week wait that defines most international competitors.

The pricing claim deserves a closer look

Every product page shows $19.99 next to a struck-through $44.99 RRP. That framing implies a 56 percent discount. In practice, the discounted figure appears to be the actual standing price across the catalogue. The struck-through RRP functions as a price anchor rather than a real previous price.

That is not unusual in Australian retail and it is not deceptive on its own. It does mean buyers should mentally treat $19.99 as the real price and ignore the anchor. Compared against an unanchored $19.99 product, the proposition is weaker than the displayed “$25 saved” messaging suggests.

The customisation reality

The buyer flow on My Story Tale follows the standard template pattern. You enter the child's name, then build an avatar by selecting skin tone, hair colour, and a few accessory options. The avatar is inserted into a fixed story and a fixed set of illustrations.

My Story Tale: pick from preset avatar options

Paper Lake: illustrated from your child's photo

Made for Sofia

The product this produces is fine for what it is. Kids enjoy seeing their name in print and an avatar that broadly resembles them. The depth of resemblance is the issue: every child with the same skin tone and hair selection in a given title receives a near-identical book. The story text never changes between buyers.

Paper Lake review

Paper Lake takes a different angle on the same problem. The buyer uploads one photo, picks an art style (Pixar, watercolour, classic Disney, or a custom style), and writes a short brief about the child and the occasion. The story is written from scratch. Illustrations are drawn from the photo. The output is a one-of-a-kind book where the kid in the story actually looks like the kid in the room.

That depth comes at a higher price. Paperback sits at $69, hardcover at $89, and the gift edition at $119. Free shipping is included on every order. Local printing keeps the turnaround at 7 to 10 business days end-to-end, including writing, illustration, and the cover preview revision step. There is no express upgrade because the bottleneck is the writing and illustration work, not freight.

For methodology and how tiers are tested before printing, see our methodology page.

Which is right for which use case

These are different products for different jobs. Most buyers will not be choosing between them as direct equivalents. Pick the one that matches what the gift is actually for.

Choose My Story Tale when:

• The budget is firmly under $25 and the gift is one of several (stocking stuffer, party favour, classroom gift)
• You are buying three or more books at once and want free shipping
• A specific catalogue title (sibling story, “starting school”, a particular animal theme) matches the moment closely enough that the templated story works
• Brand familiarity matters and the recipient parent has seen the ads
• You want a book quickly and the kid mainly cares about seeing their name on the cover

Choose Paper Lake when:

• The book is a milestone gift (christening, first birthday, adoption celebration, big sibling announcement)
• You want the story to reference something only this child would recognise (a nickname, a routine, a specific situation)
• The illustrations need to actually look like the child, not a preset avatar
• Free shipping on a single book matters
• You are giving from a grandparent, godparent, or aunt or uncle where the bar for “considered gift” is high

For deeper background on the difference between template and fully-custom approaches, see our breakdown of template versus custom personalised books. For a wider AU shortlist, the best personalised children's books in Australia guide compares both categories side by side.

The bottom line

My Story Tale is a competent Melbourne template service running an aggressive paid acquisition strategy. The books are fine. The local printing is genuinely useful. The pricing optics are louder than the underlying value, but $19.99 is still a fair price for a templated personalised book.

Paper Lake is doing a different job. Every book is written and illustrated for one child. That work costs more and it shows up differently in the kid's reaction. If the gift needs to feel made-for-them rather than name-swapped, the higher price is the point.

Spend $19.99 with My Story Tale when the moment calls for a quick, cheerful, name-on-the-cover book. Spend $69 to $119 with Paper Lake when the moment calls for a book that could not exist for any other child.