Should I Publish My Memoirs?

I won’t bother with a post about ‘Can I Publish My Memoirs’ because social media makes it possible for anyone to publish anything. Nope, it’s the ‘should’ that can be a sticking point.

It is completely understandable that having labored so prodigiously on writing your memoir, you want to share it. Makes perfect sense.

But whether to do so is still a question.

Who is your audience?

Is this memoir primarily a record of your part in your family’s history? That is, is the main intent to document a time or events you would like to pass on to family and friends? If so, then publishing to the wider world might not be imperative.

By all means put your memoir in a form that can be shared, but you may not need to publish on a wider platform.

If that still feels unsatisfying, ask yourself:

Why do I want to publish?

When I originally talked about whether you should write a memoir, I covered some of the reasons why you might or might not want to embark on this arduous journey. Now that you are on the other side of the mountain (yes, I know, mixed metaphors. I like them), they’re still useful to consider.

Reread the whole memoir from start to finish, as if you’ve never read it before. While doing so, ask yourself the following questions:

Does a sense of wanting revenge come across?

You probably didn’t start out that way, but think about whether the work has a tone of I’ve shown them or Take that! If there is a whiff here and there, I think you can rewrite those parts so they are more showing what happened than telling the reader how to feel about the events. However, if there is a strong odor of payback throughout, you might want to consider whether having written it down has gotten it out of your system, and just leave it on your hard drive.

Is there a feeling that you’ve gotten out your side of the story?

Of course, in some sense, that’s what a memoir is. You want to tell your story. I’m not really talking about that. It’s more the sense that you may have tilted the narrative so that you always come out on top. Little niggles that a certain event didn’t happen like that—a little revisionist history at play. I know the temptation is high, but actually readers don’t warm to protagonists who always win. First, because they sense the innate unbelievability but also because—well, do you really like someone who always presents himself as top dog?

These last two items are not entirely to try to save yourself from yourself but also because addressing them will make a better work.

Does your story communicate a larger story/learning?

In rereading the whole memoir, does it feel as if it is conveying a sense of some larger truth beyond the mere events? I know this is high bar, but if you want non-family to enjoy it, it is most helpful if readers can identify their own lives in your events.

Doesn’t have to be the world-is-a-better-place-if-we’re-all-nice, or crime-doesn’t-pay. It can be small but meaningful. I don’t want to give you examples because this is your memoir, but if you think readers will end by feeling they have learned something about themselves or their lives, then your memoir might well be something that needs to be enjoyed by a wider circle than friends and family.