Craft Your Memoir: Beginner's Guide To Writing And Publishing Your Story

By Cornel Manu

Do you want to write a memoir but have no idea where to start?

Craft Your Memoir: Beginner's Guide To Writing And Publishing Your Story is for you. This guide is simple to use and comprehensive, and it will teach you what is a memoir, what types of memoirs are there, how to pick your story, how to make a proper outline and structure, and even how to self-publish it.

If you never wrote a memoir before, this is the place to start. I also include tips gathered in over a decade of ghostwriting memoirs that will help you overcome writer's block and write the book easily (without actually writing it). This book is perfect for beginners.

You'll learn the difference between traditional publishing and self-publishing and which route to pick. You'll get a book marketing plan inside that you can use even before launching your book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cornel Manu
• Release date: Jun 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201858711

Cornel Manu

Cornel Manu is the founder of the motivational blog AmbitionOasis but also the writer of the book Building The Life You Want - The Practical Guide to Achieve Anything. With a passion for excellence and helping people achieve their true potential, has dedicated his life learning and teaching everything about high achievement. He is also a writer with 10 years of experience, offering his ghostwriting and copywriting services at www.cornelmanu.com. With over 100 bestselling books ghostwritten for his clients, he's the go-to writer when you want a book that sells or a business that grows.

Book preview

1. Introduction

If you ever wanted to write a memoir but you had no idea where to start, this is the book for you.

This book will teach what is a memoir, what types of memoirs there are, and how to effectively write one, publish and market it. It’s your go-to guide to publishing a piece of your life.

And it’s so simple that anyone can follow it.

Yes, it will require dedication and it will require a lot of consistent effort.

Nobody can write your memoir but you. (Unless you hire a ghostwriter, of course).

The best part is that you don’t need any previous experience in writing and publishing to get this done. The information in this book is all you need to make it happen.

Are you excited? I sure am.

Let’s embark on this journey together at the end of which you will have all the knowledge necessary to write and publish your first memoir, hopefully from many others.

2. What is a memoir

Memoir is a fancy word for a story about yourself.

We can all agree that by using this pompous word, we feel special. Of course we do, it’s French, it comes from mémoire.

Compared with the dull-sounding autobiography this is like a fresh breath of air on a hot day.

But what is the difference between a memoir and an autobiography anyway?

It’s quite simple. Autobiography is the story of your life. You should only be able to have one of these.

This rule has been pushed around in recent years and some people have two autobiographies. I consider it greedy and something to be avoided if you want to sit at the table of life with the cool kids.

Or with the cool writers.

Autobiography is written or told by you, at or near the end of your best years. It is a chronological story that begins from the moment you are born and continues to how you grew up, changed, and where you landed at the end of the story.

I get how an autobiography can be an interesting story. Maybe you are a very important person and people will be fascinated by your place of birth and how many kids you played with at the age of 10. And if you mention all the teachers you had in high-school, maybe it's less boring on paper.

Yet let’s analyze this objectively.

Let’s say that you are at a friend’s wedding and you sit at a table with strangers. You are surrounded by two guys, one called Jack and the other one called Mark.

You say, Hello. I don’t like sitting at a table with people I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me something about yourselves, so we get to know each other?

Jack says, Sure, let me tell you about my story. I was born in Riverside on a cold rainy day. And then he starts telling you about his childhood memories and how normal he was growing up. It doesn’t take very long to get extremely bored and hope that someone will rescue you from that conversation.

But when Mark answers, he says, Let me tell you about the adventure I had in the Himalayas and how it changed the way I view life and struggles in general. Now, this is an answer that will get you excited to hear.

A memoir is:

- The story of a specific time in someone’s life or

- The story of a specific theme in someone’s life.

Memoir isn’t the summary of a life; it’s a window into a life, very much like a photograph in its selective composition. It may look like a casual and even random calling up of bygone events. It’s not; it’s a deliberate construction. - William Zinsser

The theme-based memoir

One type of memoirs is the one that is based on a theme. That means you will get a collection of independent stories that revolve around a particular theme.

You can use just about anything as a theme. Did you love cars and you got plenty of stories about them? That could be a theme. Were you a fan of a particular sport and your life revolved around it? That can be a theme as well.

You can write an essay about each story that revolves around your chosen theme, and you can jump in time as well. You can jump from the time you were married to when you were a kid, or any other way.

As long as your stories follow this particular theme, there are no rules.

One thing to remember about theme-based memoirs is that it is harder to create a narrative arc, simply because this book will be a collection of essays. These stories tend to be independent of each other, but you can create a narrative arc with some tweaking and great writing.

The danger that comes with a theme-based memoir is that your reader can walk away at any time because each story stands on its own. That’s why you will need excellent writing abilities to keep your readers hooked from one story to another.

Books hook people when they have cliffhangers and suspense in them. Individual stories don’t carry the same emotional curiosity. Yet with luck and exceptional writing skills, you can turn a theme-based memoir into a book that is quickly devoured.

The time-based memoir

A time-based memoir focuses on a specific time period from your life. In this type of memoir, you