Post #64 – Women’s Memoirs, Book Business – Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler
You’ve Written Your Memoir, Then What?
Writing a memoir is a major life effort. Months turn into a year and a year turns into multiple years. At least that is the story of most people who write a memoir. Just when you think all the hard work is over, you realize you also have to get it published and then you still need to market it–to create book buzz.
Imagine your surprise and delight when you get a journalist interested in interviewing you. A dream come true. A perfect marketing opportunity. But wait. Help! Now you need to figure out what to say to the journalist.
Your first reaction, after you get over the butterflies in your stomach, is that you’ll just need to answer the questions. How hard can that be? It isn’t like a final exam. But before you move on to the next task on your marketing list, we invite you to spend sometime thinking about and planning for your interview.
1. What do you want the reader to get from your interview?
We suggest that you write down your theme (the universal aspect of your story) and your message (what a reader will get from reading your memoir). Hopefully, you wrote these down and have referenced your theme and message while you worked on your memoir. But if not, now is the time to do it.
2. How do I use the theme and message in the interview?
When you are asked questions, such as “What’s your book about?,” you’ll have your answer ready. You might response with: “It’s a coming of age story.” “It’s a mother-daughter story.” “It is a story of childhood abuse.” Etc. Then you can elaborate with a couple more sentences. If you start with a detailed answer rather than stating the universal theme, readers may be turned off, thinking your story is not relevant to their lives. The elaboration might be one small anecdote from the book — something that will hook the reader of the article. Then in a later question — it doesn’t really matter what the question is about — there is always a way back to discuss your message.
3. Will you please read?
Always be prepared with a short segment that you can read. If you have a newspaper interview, then have a short passage written out as well as in electronic form that you can give (or send) your interviewer. Spend time on this point as you want readers to like it so much that they’ll go out and buy your book.
A Brief Case Study
There’s much more to handling an interview, but these points should get you started. Below is the link to an article published about one of Women’s Memoirs regulars — Jorgelina Zeoli, Music Director of St. John the Evangelist Church in Beverly, Massachusetts. Jorgelina was contacted by a journalist for an interview. Just as the points above suggest, she worked on her theme and message in order to find ways to show how her personal story connects with others. Then she had a favorite passage ready for the interviewer.
Article about Jorgelina Zeoli’s memoirs
