Behind the Book: Buttercup
I spent almost twenty years unable to write about my marriage to Claudia. The book only worked once I stopped telling it and let Buttercup, our cat, tell it instead.
Tag: Memoir
Articles on writing and publishing a memoir: where to start, structure, what to include, the legal and family risks, and why your life story is worth getting down.
Authority Through AuthorshipHow to Get a Book Deal
Randy Peyser has helped first time authors land deals with New York publishers for 25 years. In this conversation she breaks down what publishers actually buy: the proposal, the platform, and the moves that make or break a first book.
FamilyNobody Else Asked. I Sat on the Folding Chair and He Told Me.
You want to know about the war, he said, making that familiar sucking sound through his teeth. It didn't start with Pearl Harbor for me.
Author PlatformCelebrity Ghostwriting: Capturing a Voice the Public Knows
Celebrity books are ghostwriting's most visible open secret. The craft is capturing a voice the public already knows.
MemoirSix of My Own Stories That Looked Like Nothing and Carried a Book
None of these felt like stories when they happened. A brick in a doorway. A microwave on the wrong network. Each one ended up carrying a chapter.
Book WritingYou Have More Material Than You Think. You Are Just Not Counting It.
Almost everybody who tells me they have no stories tells me three in the next ten minutes. They do not count them because nothing dramatic happened.
Contracts and AgreementsWriting about your former employer without getting sued
Memoir, business book, or exposé, if your manuscript touches your time at a former employer, you have to reckon with NDAs, non-disparagement clauses, trade secrets, and defamation. Here is what your old NDA actually restricts, what non-disparagement really prevents, what…
Authority PublishingThe acquisition memoir for founders who sold
Founders who sold their company are sitting on the most underused authority book in the market. The acquisition memoir does commercial work no other format can. Here is what to include, what your deal documents legally prevent you from saying,…
Business BooksIsn’t using a ghostwriter dishonest?
Ghostwriting has been mainstream for two thousand years. Caesar had help. Every president writes their memoirs with a ghostwriter. Most major business books on your shelf were ghostwritten or heavily edited. So the ethical question is not whether someone helped,…
Hiring a GhostwriterIs my life interesting enough for a memoir? Probably yes, and here’s the test
Is my life interesting enough for a memoir is the most common question I hear, and the framing is almost always wrong. Memoirs do not win on dramatic biography; they win on a specific voice telling a specific story honestly.…
Hiring a GhostwriterMemoir, autobiography, and biography: which one are you actually writing?
Memoir, autobiography, and biography get tossed around as synonyms, but they are different books with different structures, reader expectations, and markets, and the wrong label produces one that disappoints everyone who opens it. Here is how to tell which one…
DefamationWriting about family in a memoir without a lawsuit or a family rupture
Writing about family is the most legally and personally fraught part of a memoir, and the worry stalls more projects than anything else. The legal exposure is real but narrower than most authors fear, and the relational side has techniques…