Every ordinary life story is extraordinary!

Every ordinary life story is extraordinary!

Best Memoirs of 2012

Readers voted on the best memoirs of 2012.
The votes are in! GoodReads.com asks people to vote for the books they’ve enjoyed most during the current year. In the memoirs/autobiography category, the memoir that landed on top—Wild by Cheryl Strayed—received 8,200+ votes, nearly double the number of votes as the runner-up. The memoir is summarized by GoodReads as “powerful, blazingly honest and inspiring…a 1,100 mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe—and built her back up again.”
Also receiving roughly 3,000 votes or more were:
Paris In Love, which author and professor Eloise James wrote to chronicle her relocation to, and subsequent love affair with, the City of Lights.
The End of Your Life Book Club, a recollection of the books and conversations author Will Schwalbe and his dying mother shared in the last two years of his mother’s life.
No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden, probably the most well-known memoir on the list. Written by Mark Owen and Kevin Maurer, it gives readers a view of Bin Laden’s demise through the eyes of a Navy Seal who was there.
Mrs. Kennedy and Me: An Intimate Memoir, written with Lisa McCubbin by Clint Hill, a Secret Service agent assigned to protect Jackie Kennedy throughout the JFK presidency.
Mortality, the memoir bestselling author Christopher Hitchens tackled upon learning that he would have limited time due to esophageal cancer.
Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son’s First Son, a sort of sequel to author Anne Lamott’s Operating Instructions, about how Lamott handled becoming a grandmother unexpectedly when her son was 19.

The votes are in! GoodReads.com asks people to vote for the books they’ve enjoyed most during the current year. In the memoirs/autobiography category, the memoir that landed on top—Wild by Cheryl Strayed—received 8,200+ votes, nearly double the number of votes as the runner-up. Wild is summarized by GoodReads as “powerful, blazingly honest and inspiring…a 1,100 mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe—and built her back up again.”

Also receiving roughly 3,000 votes or more were:

  • Paris In Love, which author and professor Eloise James wrote to chronicle her relocation to, and subsequent love affair with, the City of Lights.
  • The End of Your Life Book Club, a recollection of the books and conversations author Will Schwalbe and his dying mother shared in the last two years of his mother’s life.
  • No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden, probably the most well-known memoir on the list. Written by Mark Owen and Kevin Maurer, it gives readers a view of Bin Laden’s demise through the eyes of a Navy Seal who was there.
  • Mrs. Kennedy and Me: An Intimate Memoir, written with Lisa McCubbin by Clint Hill, a Secret Service agent assigned to protect Jackie Kennedy throughout the JFK presidency.
  • Mortality, the memoir bestselling author Christopher Hitchens tackled upon learning that he would have limited time due to esophageal cancer.
  • Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son’s First Son, a sort of sequel to author Anne Lamott’s Operating Instructions, about how Lamott handled becoming a grandmother unexpectedly when her son was 19.

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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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