Linda Strader was getting nothing but rejections when she pitched her memoir to agents and publishers. But a couple of rejection letters became her saving grace when she took their advice: “Memoirs need to be universal—they need to resonate with the reader.” “A memoir must read like a novel.” After a total rewrite based on
Do you write a personal or professional blog? If so, you probably have a lot of really good material, already written and illustrated, that’s just sitting there. Adapt some of your best blog work to a book format, and now you have something to hand out and even sell. And it’s so easy. Every Christmas,
Sometimes a grammar error seems to catch on as if it’s contagious. I suppose people see something in writing, think they’ve been doing it wrong and obliviously copy the error. This is how these epidemics spread. I’ll begin to notice the error more often and in more respectable places, and then finally just about everywhere.
What’s the best valentine you’ve ever received? Maybe your partner wrote you a heartfelt note about how much you are cherished, or a child drew hearts on a card to present to you. Perhaps someone wrote a song for you or created a little video of your relationship. You know what else makes a really
You know that roll around your middle that won’t go away? It’s from sitting. You say you get out of breath if you try to bound up the stairs? It’s from sitting. The back pain? That’s from sitting, too, but probably in a bad chair or with poor posture. We all sit too much. That
Thank you to today’s guest blogger Julie Ann Toomey, author of the memoir Failure to Thrive: My Journey to Mental Health. Julie Ann tells Write My Memoirs: This book has been a long time coming. Even in high school I wanted to write a book about my life. I found myself writing down experiences in
I sing a lot. I sing in the typical places—my car, the shower, my kitchen. Most of the time no one hears me sing; those who do tend to be members of my family, and one of them is likely to ask me to stop singing. They are not even polite about it but, to
For many memoir authors, their life story isn’t their first stab at creating some form of art. When those authors decide to write a memoir, it’s natural for them to want to include their other artform. So let’s say you’ve written poetry all your life, or you have a file of newspaper clippings of your
We all want to own our legacies, but we’re not fully in control of that. The Supreme Court announced yesterday that it would not consider 102-year-old “Gone With the Wind” actress Olivia de Havilland’s claim that a TV show needed her permission to present her likeness and character. The FX miniseries “Feud: Bette and Joan,”
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!