Structure is always a major decision for memoir authors. Should you simply go chronologically, starting from the beginning of your saga and following with chapters that document the incidents as they rolled out in your life? Or, instead, should you view your life as a collection of topics and tackle each subject matter one at
At Write My Memoirs, we sit down with someone’s original writing to polish and professionalize it. Although our authors tend to have little or no professional writing in their background, the quality of their writing can be very good. It’s the structure that often needs work. We charge by the page, but many editors charge
By May, many of our New Year’s resolutions have long gone stagnant. With next New Year’s a long way off, I can suggest a different calendar trigger to get back to your memoir or other writing project. Guess what? May is Creative Beginnings Month! Facts About Creative People Are you creative? At Write My Memoirs,
I just finished Tina Brown’s memoir, The Vanity Fair Diaries, about her time as editor-in-chief of the magazine Vanity Fair from the early 1980s to the early 1990s. I liked it. You can read my Goodreads review here. Brown is recognized as one of the best magazine editors of all time, but she’s a very
If you prefer to write poetry over prose but still want to write a memoir, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from writing your memoir in poetry. And you wouldn’t be the first by a long shot. Like a series of stories, a series of poems can break down poem by poem to provide information
There’s no greater incidence of imposter syndrome than among memoir authors. When your first book is a memoir, not only can you question whether you’re a “real author” but also whether your topic is important enough for a book. The question of worthiness comes up time and again. Is my life interesting enough to fill
Simon Michael Prior has written three books about his travels. He self-published them and says they’re selling pretty well. Simon created a video to share what he’s learned with other memoir authors. Go ahead and watch the video, but I’ve also summarized his points for you along with my own comments: 1. Market Widely Simon:
You probably want people who read your memoir to root for you. Even if the main topic of your memoir does not address something like overcoming hardship, facing tragedy or triumphing over opposition, you most likely want to encourage empathy for yourself. Unless you’re unusually self-critical, telling your story from your point of view will
While many memoirs focus on a traumatic time in the author’s life, there’s no rule saying a memoir must be dark. If you have a great love in your life—romantic or otherwise—you may want to document that in your memoir or even use it as the main focus. Just Kids comes to mind. Musician Patti
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!