Everyone is writing their memoir. Why not you?

By admin, on July 9th, 2010

It seems if you have a drug addiction then you can monetize it with a memoir. Your kids have an illness, then you have a memoir that should be written. If you grew up in an dysfunctional family, you memoir needs to written. Going through an ugly divorce, you book is begging to written to get even with your soon to be x-spouse. The books will be rushing off the store shelves with millions ready to read about your problems. This only works if you are famous and have some public following which you can take to the publishers to print your book. If you are like most of us, no one really cares. I know that this sounds harsh but welcome to the reality of the book publishing business.

I write this column for most of us that who want to write a book for your families not financial success. These life stories might be commercially successful if marketed but that is not the reason for writing them. It really is to add a connection with the family members that they might have a sense of who came before them. It tells the children of today what it was like to live in a world where trains were an every day travel long before commercial planes filled the skies. It is to tell them about a time before air conditioners and how families went to the movies to be cool. It is a time when we washed dishes each evening talking about the events of the day. It is to explain a time where not every one in the family over 16 had a car and if you were younger you rode your bike everywhere. Simpler times or busier times, it is your story but make sure you share it with those you care about because we all had dysfunction and we survive to tell a “real story.”