In 2018 I attended a pitch slam, hosted by the now-defunct but ever-lovely Paragraph NYC, at Brooklyn Book Fest.
During the slam, aspiring authors could stand at the mic, in front of a crowd, and pitch their books to a panel of editors and literary agents. (It’s the first time I received direct agent feedback on the query letter to what would become MY BIG FAKE WEDDING.)
One aspiring author had a brilliant concept for a memoir. She had had breast augmentation surgery as a teenager and then, after a cancer diagnosis, a mastectomy to remove both her breasts. In the same lifetime, she had enlarged and then grieved the total loss of part of her body, and as an audience member listening to the pitch, I couldn't have been more thrilled to read a compelling memoir in this vein.
The panel, however, thought differently.
They knew the market better than either of us, and they encouraged this woman to reach out to others who had had one or both of the surgeries and/or experienced body dysmorphia as a result of cultural expectations. This, they said, would add a multifaceted richness to the memoir.
This was, of course, quite a while ago, but I think the advice stands. In fact, I agree with it more now than I did then.
Perhaps you do too? Have you browsed the narrative nonfiction shelves lately and thought, “Oh man, I don’t have it in me to read another grief memoir”?
Here are a few thoughts on the memoir market as it stands, a few things you might prioritize inside and out of your own work.
A note before we get started: This blog post should be seen as a primer. It contains observations I’ve made in the recent past, while working with memoirists who have attained agent interest, that I feel will help improve memoirists chances of trade publication, but it is certainly not the be all, end all of advice.
Connect your story to the stories of others.
Just like the best social media posts aren’t all about me, me, me, these days, readers are looking for experiences beyond a writer’s when they pick up a memoir. Contemporary memoirs not only touch on the author's life but connect it to the similar experiences of others and to cultural highlights that have universal recognition. In other words, trade appeal these days takes one's personal experiences and maps them onto the universal in some way.
Another market priority: blending narrative and informative nonfiction.
Besides connecting, comparing, and contrasting your lived experience with someone else’s, another way to tap into the universal is to infuse information on a related subject into your memoir. I see this a lot in the guise of the memoir/self-help hybrid, in which a memoir from a subject matter expert like a CEO or a life coach shares tips for the reader, who ostensibly wants to be more like them. A more upmarket example might be Why Fish Don’t Exist by Lulu Miller, which tells both Miller’s story and the story of David Starr Jordan, a nineteenth-century taxonomist.
If you aren’t a subject matter expert or don’t have any “pro tips” up your sleeve, no worries! One way to strike a similar tone is to do some journalistic research as you’re writing your memoir. Let’s say you’re working on a project about unpaid family caregiving. Your experience is of course sympathetic to the reader, but to drive home how universal your experience is (and therefore how much it might impact the reader), you might research statistics on what percentage of the US population has provided unpaid long-term care to a family member in the past year. (This is also a bonus for you when you’re drafting your book proposal, something that is required for some memoirs. Dropping this sort of statistic in your proposal’s overview and/or market analysis could produce a greater societal argument that the world needs your viewpoint.)
Can pure memoirs still gain traction?
Sure, I think so! However, I also feel that, due to its saturation, the market is more discerning than it used to be. I apologize for the crassness of what I’m about to say, but agents aren’t looking for yet another addiction, eating disorder, or grief memoir. There are tons of great ones already on the shelf! (And you’d do well to read them to see what you can do differently.)
Instead, when it comes to pure memoirs, agents and publishers are looking for stories that feel new and fresh, a twist on the existing genre. I mentioned grief memoirs earlier, and in that vein, This Is Not a Pity Memoir by Abi Morgan and I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy remain favorites to this day. They feel fresh and spin the grief memoir subgenre on its head. In the case of This Is Not a Pity Memoir, rarely have I expected a memoir to end one way and been proven wrong, and Morgan’s life experience and matter-of-fact way of recounting it prove that in spades.
One way around the rigors of the market? Reconsider your publication options.
As agents love to say, “Of course, this is one person’s opinion.” And who’s to say that an agent won’t snap up your pure, non-twisty memoir for reasons I haven’t anticipated here?
Indie presses are also taking on bold, beautiful writing that doesn’t have to become a hybrid. Consider, for instance, Lexi Kent-Monning’s The Burden of Joy, a work of autofiction and the first full-length book to be published by Rejection Letters.
If you find yourself bristling at the idea that you have to blend your memoir with related statistics and topical information or distill it down with others’ life stories, first consider whether you want to share your story with tons of people or just a few. If you only want your family to have copies of your life story as a keepsake or holiday gift, you might do well to self-publish. Ditto if you’re an entrepreneur with a smaller following who wants to use the advice/memoir hybrid as a lead magnet or a cross-sale on their website.
If you are someone with a major platform, on or offline, or a unique story to tell, trade publishing is still your best route. If you want to trade-publish more than anything but aren’t at the level of having a major platform yet, think about the ways that you can beef up your existing one. (By platform, I mean your social clout, whether that be newsletter subscribers, TikTok followers, or a regular and esteemed workshop you teach in your area.) Can you start pitching companion articles to online publications in your area of interest (e.g., AARP Magazine for that caregiving story)? If you post regularly to Instagram, can you develop the sort of following that would label you an influencer?
It’s a lot to take in, but even by considering all of this stuff that happens “outside” your book, you’re getting ahead of the curve.
All stories are important, and the key, as you draft and query a memoir, is to recall that publishing gatekeepers are not commenting on the importance of your story when they’re accepting or rejecting you but rather on the marketability of said story. Just like Uncle Al getting stuck in the TSA line at Thanksgiving is a funny family story but not something that should necessarily be made into a Tom Hanks movie the way, say, a pilot expertly crash-landing a plane should be, not every memoir may snag an agent’s attention.
Keep plugging away, determine your strategic plan of attack, and trust that the people who need to read your story will find you.