Memoirs Booming in Book Industry
True Life Stories Are Selling Big Among General Readers
Due to the popularity of reality TV, memoirs are recent big sellers in the book industry. People are interested to read true stories while experts are pushing fiction.
The book industry has been seeing an increase in the amount of memoirs that are being accepted for publication. This genre surpassed debut novels in acceptances last year, according to the Publishers Lunch newsletter.
Growing Popularity
Memoirs are said to have rose in popularity in the 1990’s and have stayed that way since, generating high sales and staying on the New York Times’ top 10 hardcover list for up to a year at a time.
Currently, five memoirs occupy this list including Julie Andrews' "Home," David Sheff's "Beautiful Boy," Jose Canseco's "Vindicated," Tori Spelling's "Stori Telling" and Valerie Bertinelli's "Losing It." Two other memoirs, Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin's "Three Cups of Tea" and Elizabeth Gilbert's "Eat, Pray, Love" are in the top two spots on the New York Times’ paperback nonfiction list.
What Sells
The memoirs that sell are stories about people who have overcome difficult situations and circumstances, such as poor living conditions or addiction. They are meant to give their readers a positive message that anything can be overcome. In the past, authors have taken their stories and turned them into novels. Now, when any fiction is injected into a memoir, scandals can ensue, such as happened with James Frey’s “A Million Little Pieces.”
While general readers are soaking up the memoir genre, literary experts are not all impressed with the material that is selling. One college professor in particular, Patsy Vigderman of Kenyon College in Ohio, believes that memoirs are no different from reality TV, true but embellished pieces that only amaze their readers because it is marketed as nonfiction. She tries to focus her students more on writing autobiographical fiction and focusing on good writing rather than good story telling.
The Stories They Tell
Those who write memoirs are believed to want to leave their mark on the world by telling their story. Since everybody has a different story to tell, the content lent to memoir writing can never run out. The average person can relate to an average writer all the while envying them for the content they have produced.
If it is a celebrity telling their story, a memoir can spark curiosity about what the celebrity has to say about their personal life outside of a TV screen or interview chair. However, it is the stories about well known people that are more likely to sell unless a good story about an unknown person gets endorsed either by word of mouth or other celebrities, like Oprah Winfrey.
