She Writes

Book marketing is a lot like sales, and as any successful salesperson will tell you, it's often a numbers game. In other words, the more people you contact, the better chance you have of getting a response. However, before you fire off a bunch of emails, I strongly recommend creating a system to track your efforts. It will keep you organized, and it will also keep you from inadvertently pitching the same person more than once, which can be embarrassing.

I have a spreadsheet on my laptop called "Marketing" that includes several tabs, e.g. media, conferences, book clubs, etc. Each tab (or worksheet) includes a list of organizations, sorted alphabetically and by state. For each organization, I have columns listing a contact person's name and email address, the most recent date, nature and status of the…

NO MORE WRITING EXERCISES. I mean it. If you are going to learn to write memoir, you need to learn to write with intent. To do so, the first step is to chuck out any writing prompts or exercises you are using, and write for real.

When you practiced with prompts, something always flowed, though all of it remains in some notebook. Much like playing tennis with a pro who hits every shot right to you, those exercises convinced you that you had this writing thing nailed. But then you found that when alone in a room trying to write, it’s mind-slammingly hard. Sound familiar?

Writing is good, honest work. And it cannot be reduced to generic writing exercises and pre-fabricated prompts. And ask yourself these questions: Have any of those ditties ever gotten you where you want to be as a writer? After reading one of those books of exercises, or subscribing to yet another web-based, prompt-list newsletter, have you actually finished that letter to your child that you long to…

There is an old saying that most men would rather have you hear their story than grant their wish. I’m fairly sure that can be said of all of us, especially when I see how much memoir is being written these days. I’m also fairly sure that those writers who struggle when writing memoir do so because while they desire to tell their stories, they try to tell too much too fast.

Maybe I can help.

I’ve been teaching memoir writing for about 15 years, at last count to more than one thousand people, and over the years I have developed what I call my Memoir Manifesto. I love that title because it sounds like something I can turn back to any time I need it. And it is.

I’d love to share it with you, since that’s what we do here at SheWrites, believing as we do that SheWriters should be invested in one another’s success.

For today, I’ll merely print the Manifesto here, hoping it gets you curious about what’s to come. Then for the week we’re together, I’ll explain…

When I learned that my publisher decided to let One Person/Multiple Careers go out of print just a few months after its second printing, I didn't know what to make of it. The book hadn't sold millions of copies, but it had sold thousands, had a loyal following -- and garnered continuous media attention around the world.

As someone who spends a lot of time talking about the book business with other writers, this just didn't make sense. But rather than whine, I took action. I asked the publisher to revert the rights back to me -- which happened with relative ease and no cash on my end. And I decided to release an electronic version and a new paperback edition on my own, as the first "Heymarci.com" production. In fact, the thing that pushed me to get moving and get the e-book finished was a wave of recent interest (nearly five years after the book's publication) …