Every ordinary life story is extraordinary!

Every ordinary life story is extraordinary!

A Lifetime Can’t be Summed Up in One Letter

Don’t just summarize your life story; write a book!
A Lifetime Can’t be Summed Up in One Letter
“As I near age 80, I feel that the story I have carried in my heart since childhood should be written,” begins a letter to the Chicago Tribune published last week. The letter goes on to summarize the writer’s happy childhood, which takes a total of eight paragraphs.
It’s nice that a major newspaper gives people the opportunity to relate their memories, but this also made me sad. The letter-writer is 80 years old and bursting with the desire to share the story she’s has carried in her heart all these years. So why has she waited until age 80? You can never be sure that you will be physically and mentally capable of sharing your story if you wait. Also, why limit your reach to one letter in one newspaper when you can write a book to have forever or list on amazon.com?
One of our WriteMyMemoir authors who asked us to publish his memoir started out last summer with 20 books. He’s already twice asked us to print up 20 more, because people see the book and want a copy for themselves. It’s so special to have a memoir available! As the New Year approaches, think about what you want your life to represent. You can shape the concept people have of you by crafting it in a memoir, and you don’t have to wait until your golden years or limit yourself to eight paragraphs when you have a whole book in you to write!
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/ct-vp-1224voicelettersbriefs-20111224,0,5671839.story?page=3

“As I near age 80, I feel that the story I have carried in my heart since childhood should be written,” begins a letter to the Chicago Tribune published last week. The letter goes on to summarize the writer’s happy childhood, which takes a total of eight paragraphs.

It’s nice that a major newspaper gives people the opportunity to relate their memories, but this also made me sad. The letter-writer is 80 years old and bursting with the desire to share the story she has  carried in her heart all these years. So why has she waited until age 80? You can never be sure that you will be physically and mentally capable of sharing your story if you wait. Also, why limit your reach to one letter in one newspaper when you can write a book to have forever or list on amazon.com?

One of our WriteMyMemoir authors who asked us to publish his memoir started out last summer with 20 books. He’s already twice asked us to print up 20 more, because people see the book and want a copy for themselves. It’s so special to have a memoir available! As the New Year approaches, think about what you want your life to represent. You can shape the concept people have of you by crafting it in a memoir, and you don’t have to wait until your golden years or limit yourself to eight paragraphs when you have a whole book in you to write!

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Then just set up a chapter and start writing your memoir. Don’t worry about rules. There are no rules to writing your memoir; there are only trends. These trends are based on techniques and features identified in current top-selling memoirs. At best, they’re the flavor of the month. If you’re capturing your life in print for your family, for your own gratification or to inspire readers, rather than aiming to set off Hollywood screenplay bidding wars, these trends don’t even apply to you. You’ll write the memoir that suits you best, and it will be timeless, not trend-driven.There are no rules, but there are four steps:

1. Theme/framework
2. Writing
3. Editing/polishing
4. Self-publishing

You’ve researched this, too, and you’ve been shocked at the price for getting help with any one of those steps, much less all four. That’s because most memoir sites promise to commercialize your work. They’ll follow a formula based on current memoir trends, because they want to convince you that they can turn your memoir into a best-seller. These sites overwhelm you with unnecessary information not to help you, the memoir author, but to address Search Engine Optimization (SEO) algorithms so they can sell more.

That’s not what we do at Write My Memoirs. Our small community of coaches, writers and editors are every bit as skilled as any you’ll find, and we charge appropriately for their expertise and the time they’ll spend helping you craft a compelling, enjoyable read. But you won’t pay an upcharge for other websites’ commercialization, the marketing that follows, and the pages of intimidating “advice.” You can sell your book if you like—we have ISBNs available for you—but our organic process of capturing your story takes a noncommercial path.

If you want help with any or all of the four steps above, choose from our services or save money by selecting one of our packages. If you’d like to talk about what’s right for you, schedule a call. One year from now, you can be holding your published memoir in your hand. And at that point, it will be a big deal!

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