Is Your Memoir Commercially Viable? A Sneaky Test
When I was teaching a memoir class in the UCLA Extension Writer’s Program, I would ask students to come to the first class session with a memoir they had recently read and loved and one that could also be considered a comparable (aka competitive) title for the book they wanted to write. My goal was to get writers to think big about their books: to consider the marketplace they wanted to enter, the needs and behaviors of the readers they wanted to reach, and the impact they wanted to have on those readers. (I recently wrote a newsletter about the different ways of thinking big HERE.) These are critical foundational steps for memoir writers who are striving to get their books published.
On the first day of class, more than half the students came in clutching dog-eared copies of Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.* These were people writing memoirs about illness and grief, heartbreak and triumph, families and lovers, and all of them chose this one book as their touchstone.
The book was still in the early days of its bestseller run (as was I in my own teaching practice), and I was dumbfounded: All these writers had brought in the same book? Was it that they hadn’t read any other memoirs or was it that this one had established a sudden stranglehold on the reading public?
The answer to that question turned out to be that both things were true. They were true back then, and they continued to be true in every class I taught, although each year there was a different book. Many people writing memoir haven’t read very widely in the genre and there always seemed to be one red-hot book that dominated their collective imagination—after Eat, Pray, Love, it was Wild by Cheryl Strayed and then Educated by Tara Westover, and then Untamed by Glennon Doyle.
A memoir writer needs to know where their book will sit on the shelf, which means they need to understand that shelf.
They need to know who their ideal readers are and what else those readers are reading (probably not only books by Elizabeth Gilbert, Cheryl Strayed, and Glennon Doyle.) They need to think hard about the structure of their story and whether or not it serves their point.
A book proposal—which is the document a writer develops to make a business case for their book (and something I recommend all my memoir clients create)—typically highlights five comparable titles. The point of the comp title section is to show agents, acquisition editors, publishers, and other people poised to invest in your book exactly how your book will be positioned in the marketplace. Presenting a nuanced set of titles goes a long way in showing that you understand your project and the way the entire publishing game is played.
Here’s what I mean by commercial viability…
Commercial viability is the term I use for a book that is positioned for other people to read. Whether or not the writer started with the intention that it would be read by other people, they have come to see it as a product that will be bought and sold, and have committed themselves to doing what it takes to give it its best chance.
They are doing the work to understand what the market requires, including understanding the comp titles.
They understand their role in connecting with readers.
They are not just crossing their fingers and hoping to be picked.
What does presenting a nuanced comp title list look like?
In her proposal for her memoir, The Only Way Through is Out (University of Wisconsin Press, February 2024) Author Accelerator Book Coach Suzette Mullen did a spectacular job creating her comp title section.
She listed five books. One of them was indeed Glennon Doyle’s Untamed, but it comes at the end of a fascinating mix of other memoirs, and the way Suzette frames Doyle’s book against her own is just perfect. Suzette’s comps show that she is well-read, thoughtful, clear about her intention and purpose, and precise about her future reader.
With her permission, I share the comp section of her book proposal, below.
Suzette Mullen
Author & book coach. She shares the “comp titles” section of her memoir book proposal below:
Competitive Titles in Memoir
In the early days of questioning my sexuality, I was desperate for stories that spoke to my experience. There weren’t many, and the less than half dozen I found were the same titles being read by the other two thousand plus members of my coming out later-in-life support group. We were constantly on the lookout for more. Before I came to terms with my sexuality, I was a woman at midlife who wanted to read stories about and by women who didn’t settle for “good enough.” The competitive titles for THE ONLY WAY THROUGH IS OUT straddle these two worlds and speak to these same longings.
In the Dream House: A Memoir by Carmen Maria Machado (Graywolf Press, 2020)
My ideal readers are reading In the Dream House because they want to be challenged—both in terms of their thinking and in terms of literary form. They don’t need or want to be spoon-fed; they enjoy making connections for themselves and are comfortable with structures that jump around in time. While the structure of THE ONLY WAY THROUGH IS OUT is less experimental than that of In the Dream House, both books utilize a fractured nonlinear story structure. In addition, readers of both books are interested in reading about relationships outside the cisgender, heterosexual paradigm.
The Fixed Stars by Molly Wizenberg (Harry N. Abrams, 2020)
My ideal readers love this memoir because it shows how a single moment can cause a person to question everything they know about themselves. My book likewise includes a “scales falling from the eyes” kind of moment. THE ONLY WAY THROUGH IS OUT adds to the conversation by exploring what happens when a woman tamps down her desires well into midlife instead of changing course in her thirties, as Wizenberg did.
She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders by Jennifer Finney Boylan (Crown, Reprint Edition 2013)
While She’s Not There is an older book, I include it here because it helped me feel less alone as I agonized over leaving my marriage and good life to step into an unknown future. At that time, a close friend handed me Boylan’s book. “Your situation is different,” this friend said, “But I think you will relate to it.” It was as if Boylan was traveling in my head: “I often woke up and lay there in the dark,” Boylan wrote. “Usually this was about quarter to four. I’m the wrong person, I thought. I’m living the wrong life … To which I would respond, You’re a maniac. An idiot. You have a life a lot of other people dream about, a life so full of blessings that your heart hurts.” Some of my ideal readers are struggling with sexual, gender, or other identity issues and my deep desire is that THE ONLY WAY THROUGH IS OUT, along with books like She’s Not There, will help my readers feel seen, less alone, and empowered to step into their authentic lives.
Blow Your House Down: A Story of Family, Feminism, and Treason by Gina Frangello (Counterpoint, 2021)
My ideal readers appreciate raw honesty and authenticity, which they find in abundance in Blow Your House Down. My readers, like Frangello’s, are comfortable with ambiguity and complexity, and are interested in navigating the tensions between individual desires and family responsibilities. At the center of both this book and mine are midlife, mixed-gender marriages that end because of the choices of the female spouse, a subject many midlife readers will relate to. Finally, my ideal readers appreciate a memoir that is both a page-turner and one that plays with non-traditional forms. Like Blow Your House Down, THE ONLY WAY THROUGH IS OUT has a defined narrative arc but also includes fragments, vignettes, social commentary, and an occasional breaking of the fourth wall.
Untamed by Glennon Doyle (The Dial Press, 2020)
Comparisons to Untamed are both preposterous and necessary. It is preposterous to think a debut memoir by an author who discovered her sexuality later in life could achieve the blockbuster status of Untamed. And it is also necessary to examine the reasons why women, young and old, straight and queer, have flocked to Doyle’s combination memoir/manifesto giving women permission to stop pleasing others and start living the lives they were meant to live. My readers connect with Doyle’s message that the inner voice calling them to something more has been tamed by cultural conditioning. Doyle’s midlife audience will relate to my book’s message that it’s never too late to listen to your inner voice, explore your sexuality, or start over.
Try the Sneaky Comp Title Test for Memoir for Yourself
Click here or click the button below to take your turn at this sneaky test to identify comp titles — and what questions to ask to help you figure out what these books are and why they belong on the list. If you enjoyed this exercise you will enjoy our weekly newsletter content for writers and book coaches!
