Memoir Week Day Two: I Don't Want To Read Your Story

The trouble with the memoir genre is that writers frequently tell stories that have already been told. Perhaps you were abused or assaulted. Maybe you spent years recovering from addiction or depression. You might think these stories are worth telling because they are painful and your recovery was unique. Pain, however, isn’t enough. Everyone’s already read the abusive family memoir. The addiction memoir is so common it’s basically a genre on its own. Your work must compete with a veritable ocean of books about mental illness and abuse. It’s not enough to tell the story better than most. You must find an angle nobody’s used before, and that’s tough because Goodreads lists around 450 memoirs published professionally every year. In the formal marketplace, here are the annual numbers:

All fiction deals: 1,828
Debut fiction deals only: 404
Romance deals only: 336
Memoir deals only: 267

Publishers are reducing their memoir output. Fiction does better, so what’s your angle? You can’t change your life story, but you can find interesting angles to tell it from. Even Chicken Soup for the Soul, which has an immense output, expects new writers to submit stories they’ve never heard. I used to write for the “My Story” section of Cosmopolitan Magazine. Every month, I had to find a story they’d never told before. This is hardly easy, but it is possible if you push for it.

I have yet another bugbear for you: If AI can tell your story exactly as you would, you will fail.

In the words of Random House, “I don’t want to read your story.”

If you want to inspire a publisher to read about your life, your book will need to have as much merit as a fiction novel. I’m not trying to discourage you. I’m trying to encourage you to be more creative with your memoir. Don’t take the obvious angle. Think differently.