Self publishing a memoir

Firstly, congratulations on writing your memoir 😊 I think it's marvellous.

I don't have advice about publishing, but a relative who has had a very interesting life wrote a memoir and it was clear from the feedback that she got, that it needed editing, which is a skill not everyone has.

I read a book on the craft of writing and what struck me as good advice is that it's a good idea to share the final draft of the book with a few trusted readers, friends, relatives, "opening the door a crack", before "throwing the door open wide" (publishing).

Before embarking on self publishing which can be expensive and there are sharks around looking to capitalise, think about your potential market. Who is going to actually want to buy your book? How are you going to market it? There are tens of thousands of books published each year, what is your book's special attraction?

My late bil self published a family history with family trees birth,death, and marriage certificates, wills property deeds it took him years to collate and put it all together and cost a lot to publish. He gave family members a copy and very sadly never sold any at all, who'd be interested? When my sister had to move house after he died she had to dump several hundred copies it was very sad.

I expect he enjoyed collecting all the info though. Useful archive for family.

That's so sad tanith. I hope he enjoyed doing all the research of his family history though

Yes you’re right he would take a weeks holiday to go all over Wales visiting chapels to look at the parish records my poor sister tagging along on ‘holiday’ 😂 I suppose it was his hobby apart from visiting the local hostelries too.

An interesting hobby.

I did have a friend who published her memoir about six years ago. My it was boring. Most of the things she had done or written about I and my other friends had also done. It was very much, been there, done that. There was nothing terribly original about it. She did send it to several publishers, including a hybrid one, but they all declined it.
So I would say make sure your story is special and get a good editor .

I'd love to do this but don't have the skill.

Amazing! Good luck, I’ve thought about writing, in various forms. Best of luck

Writing a book is the easy part. Publishing then launching and marketing is when the work really starts. Think about getting a copy editor then a proof reader then think about a cover. All of this is easily available to would be self publishers but at a cost! As said before, there are sharks circling memoir writers.