Mom called the other day with the opinion that I should write my memoirs. I guess that's viable -- I have the material for it, and this idea falls solidly into the "write what you know" school of authorship wisdom -- but I strongly question whether anyone other than family and close friends would pay to read vignettes about my obscure life. Any publishing house worth its salt would pose the same question. Most people pick up a memoir in a bookstore or online because they already know something about the author and are curious to discover more. In my case, that'd be a built-in audience of 50 people, tops. That's not even enough to justify a vanity publishing run.
Meanwhile, I continue writing about ideas that take my fancy. You can't figure out ahead of time what an editor wants to see -- not even an editor can do that -- so you might as well write to please yourself, ne?
4 comments:
I figure blogging is kind of like writing your memoirs.
Kind of. And as long as people can read them for free, I'll have a built-in audience. :)
I dunno....writing about our college hijinks could be entertaining.... :)
It would have to be called "The Dive Club," no?
Post a Comment