Writing & selling your memoir - Paula Balzer

There's more to writing a memoir than just writing your life story.

A memoir isn't one long diary entry. Rather, it's a well-crafted story about a crucial, often exceptionally difficult, time in someone's life. Writing & Selling Your Memoir talks readers through the process of telling their most personal stories in a compelling, relatable, and readable manner. Unlike other books dedicated to the art and craft of writing memoir, it teaches readers how to approach the genre with love, respect, and know-how without sentimentalizing it.

Drawing on her experience working with New York Times best-selling memoirists, literary agent Paula Balzer carefully explores the genre and provides readers with step-by-step instruction on how to:

• Identify strong opening and closing points
• Find and develop a strong central hook that readers can relate to
• Structure a memoir to maximize readability
• Use dialogue and pacing to enhance intimacy
• Approach honesty and truthfulness
• Build a successful author platform around their memoir
• Get an agent's attention
• Get published

Full of tips, techniques, detailed exercises, and examples from best-selling memoirs as well as sidebars from well-known memoir authors, Writing & Selling Your Memoir teaches you how to approach an often tricky genre and tell your story without sentimentalizing it.

Paula Balzer has been a literary agent for the past 9 years. Some of her authors include New York Times best-selling author Alexandra Robbins, Oscar-award winning writer of Juno, Diablo Cody, American Idol judge, Randy Jackson and Bobby Henderson. Prior to owning her own literary agency, she worked in some of New York City's best literary agencies. She grew up in Wisconsin and currently lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter.