by Cindy Sproles @cindydevoted
“I have a memoir.” An excited conferee sat across from an acquisitions editor.
An awkward silence seeped across the table. The editor tinkered with the manuscript. “We aren’t looking for memoirs.”
“But your site says you publish them.”
“We publish memoirs if you’re Brad Pitt, George Clooney, or you have a platform of millions.”
“But we have a story about how my mother overcame cancer.”
The editor smiled. “Thousands overcome cancer. It’s an over-done topic.”
Everyone Has a Story
Why are memoirs so hard to sell? I can answer that, but please don’t shoot the messenger. It’s important to know the facts and remember exceptions always exist. Being in the right place, at the right time, with the perfect manuscript does happen for some. But for most, the work doesn’t supersede the obstacles.
A popular phrase at writing conferences is, “Everyone has a story.” And that is true. If you want to be a writer, you probably have a story twirling around in your head about a conspiracy theory or a romance or some other thing. It doesn’t necessarily mean you have a personal story – aka memoir.
Memoirists Must Have a Platform
Neil Genzlinger of The New York Times best described why memoirs are not successful for most authors in his 2011 article:
Memoirs have been disgorged by virtually everyone who has ever had cancer, been anorexic, battled depression, lost weight. By anyone who has ever taught an underprivileged child, adopted an underprivileged child or been an underprivileged child. By anyone who was raised in the ’60s, ’70s or ’80s, not to mention the ’50s, ’40s or ’30s. Owned a dog. Run a marathon. Found religion. Held a job.
What Sets Memoirs Apart
You can write a successful memoir, but it is important to understand that without the proper platform, selling the manuscript is difficult. The story must be unique, dig deep into the overall life of the person, and steer hard away from author sympathy. There are successful memoirs by unknown authors, but it’s their construction and twists that set them apart.
What to Avoid When Writing a Memoir
The memoir becomes a cry for sympathy for the author.
Be it true or not, this is how the public takes note. We live in a world of “it’s all about me.” Readers are not interested in feeling sorry for someone when they have their own issues. Writing a compelling memoir pushes the author to the side and tells the real story without constant author interruption.
Readers don’t want to suffer.
Many times, a memoir focuses on the pain and agony of an issue, forgetting the good things in the lives of those who have lived the story. Often the author wants the reader to feel their pain – and if feeling the pain once isn’t enough, they relentlessly beat the reader over the head thinking that incessant reminders will help it “sink in.”
Readers are not dumb. They get the pain and suffering without having it stuffed down their throat every other paragraph. Learning to show the incident with balance and control allows a reader to become sympathetic and interested, rather than put off.
There is no real meaning.
Often, writers tell the story of a hardship they’ve experienced and it ends leaving the reader with no real meaning. No sense of accomplishment. Readers feel unfulfilled and cheated. It was simply a story about overcoming a disease.
Remember the movies in the ‘8os that started out as good, but when they ended, there was nothing? No resolution, no joy, nothing? The movie just ended, leaving you hanging in a lurch. When a memoir ends, there should be resolution and an end that, even if it’s tough, shows some sort of hope or determination to persevere.
What to Do When Writing a Memoir
Selling to large houses without a huge platform will be tough.
Medium-sized houses will publish memoirs, if the story is compelling and it’s a topic that house has experience and success in tackling. Smaller houses will publish a well-written memoir, but their reach in the marketplace is very limited. Self-publishing puts a book out there, but more times than not, it’s lost in the millions of books on Amazon. Unless the author has a steady speaking venue where books can sell at the back door, sales will be slim to none. Memoirs are rarely, if ever, money makers. Understanding this going in prepares the you for what lies ahead.
Write the story by digging into the life of the person, not just the hardship.
How can you write a memoir without digging into a person’s life? It happens all the time when authors allow the story to encompass nothing but pain – no hope, no depth of impact to others around them. It’s easy to allow the manuscript to become a pity party and self-absorbed rather than pulling out the heavy “I” and allowing the impact of the story on others to show. Good memoirs cover a life, not just tragedy.
Seek out a new twist on an old subject.
Remember, if you have experienced something, chances are thousands of others have as well. This is good in that there are others looking for how you handled your situation, but it’s bad in that there are probably thousands of others who have written the same story. Search out what is different and unique about your story. What can you give the reader that will help them outside of a search on Google? In The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls, we learn how Walls overcomes poverty in a dysfunctional family to become a successful New York journalist. It may be a personal impact, but chances are it will be the impact you have on others.
If you choose to write a memoir, research, practice. Look for your unique twist. Seek guidance from someone who is accomplished in writing a memoir. Their guidance will be valuable. A good memoir doesn’t just talk about an accomplishment, it helps to change lives.
If you could write a successful memoir, what would your topic and twist be? We’d love to hear your ideas in the comments below!
Cindy K. Sproles is a speaker, author, and teacher. She is a best-selling author and the cofounder of Christian Devotions Ministries. Cindy is the managing editor for Straight Street Books and SonRise Devotionals, imprints of Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas. She lives in the very mountains she writes about – the Appalachians. Visit Cindy at www.cindysproles.com.
The Conversation
At the recent Write to Publish Conference, I felt a nudge in my spirit, but I pushed it aside. A few days after the conference, my wife and I were at one of our small group meetings. Our discussion took a turn where I felt the nudge again. I shared a bit of my life that intentionally only immediate family knows about. I also shared what Jesus led me to do and the outcome of it. I couldn’t believe the impact it had on the group. So, a memoir seems to be on my plate.
Yes, there’s a lot of pain associated with it, and I am not enjoying letting myself feel it again in order to establish the baseline. The real story is in the restoration. My father was an abusive, prone to violence, alcoholic. I was convinced he was demon possessed when I looked into his eyes. When I was 10, he attempted to kill Mom and me. That fear lay near the surface in all my relationships for almost another 10 years.
When I was nineteen, Dad had a crippling stroke. While I had more compassion for him, I never let go of the past. Another 7 or 8 years past and Jesus began speaking to me two words of forgiveness: 1) I needed to forgive him, even if he saw no need for it, and 2) I needed to ask him to forgive me for the terrible representation of Christ for him. I fought the idea of it–admitting it was right–until I had no more fight in me. I prayed Jesus would make it genuine in me.
Dad responded in a way to say he felt justified and vindicated for what he had done raising me. I reacted and had to repent to God for that, too. The next year or two my wife and I took every opportunity to reaffirm the sincerity of my apology and our love. He saw and believed, and he died in the arms of Jesus. Since then, Jesus has continued to heal my memories by revealing things about Dad I never knew. I’ve learned how he tried to show me his love, but it wasn’t in the way I wanted or understood. I’m no longer ashamed of my dad. Most important, none of this happy ending would have happened without forgiveness in me.
Sounds too much like “I Can Only Imagine” the story of Bart Millard of the band MercyMe.
Sometimes, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, I dream of going someplace else. For Dorothy, it was over the rainbow. For me, I dream of a less complicated time in life when I had what I needed but it was absent of the influence of too much. Because that experience was so meaningful to me, I want to share it with someone who may never get the opportunity to experience such.
(This is the first paragraph of a story entitled,The Land Before the Time of Too Much.)