What Should a Memoir Author Blog About? Here Are 5 Ideas.

AMONG THE MANY questions I field each week as a memoir coach and writing teacher, one of the most common is about whether a writer needs to start a memoir blog. I asked Kyle Young, who helps with marketing and operations here at The Memoir Project, to handle this assignment for you. Kyle and I met when I spoke at the Tribe Writers Conference a while back and we’ve been talking ever since. I take every single question I have about my blog to him, so let’s take yours, as well. 

What Should a Memoir Author Blog About? Here Are 5 Ideas.

by Kyle Young

Lots of new authors ask me: Do I need to start a memoir blog to make a living as a memoir writer? It’s a good question. After all, we don’t want to do unnecessary work that takes us away from writing. But the answer to the question is “probably.”

Let’s start with an important term here. It’s “platform,” at its simplest meaning where the public can find you. Platforms can range in size and scope from having a simple, one-page online site to having a weekly newspaper column, radio show and/or large blog. Along with it being where we can find you, your platform can also represent how we hear more about you and how you build your audience by bringing us back week-to-week with such interesting content that we are inclined to share that content with our friends. It’s possible to get published without a platform. If you have a fascinating story at a timely moment in history, you might be able to pull if off. But your odds of success will be much greater if you build an audience now.

Publishers are looking for books that are likely to sell at a high volume. And when you bring your own audience, top publishing houses will feel more confident about investing in you. This can not only increase your odds of getting a book deal, it can also help you land a bigger, more lucrative, advance. Or, you could forgo the traditional publishing model, and leverage your audience to self-publish a book on your own terms. Put simply, having an audience creates opportunities for writers.

How to Start A Memoir Blog

But how do you start a memoir blog? And what will you write about?

You should begin by identifying the type of audience you want to build, with the ultimate goal of selling books. What kind of person would be interested in the memoir(s) you’re planning to write? What kind of blog would they enjoy reading?

Here are five blog categories to inspire some ideas for how you could build an audience for your memoir.

1. Topic Specific Sites

 If you’re planning to write a memoir around a specific topic, a website built around that same topic can be a good idea.

For example, David Leite, a client of Marion’s and author of the fabulous memoir Notes on a Banana: A Memoir of Food, Love and Manic Depression, grew his audience through his popular food blog, Leite’s Culinaria.

Marion’s sister, Margaret Roach, took a similar approach in the area of gardening — authoring several memoirs, including And I Shall Have Some Peace There: Trading in the Fast Lane for My Own Dirt Road in conjunction with her widely read gardening blog, A Way to Garden.

Topic specific sites are best suited for memoir writers who have some expertise surrounding a particular topic and/or a willingness to do research and write helpful articles.

To plan out article ideas for your blog, think about questions people ask surrounding your topic and how you might answer them.

2. Lifestyle Blogs

Another genre of blogs some memoir authors use to build an audience is lifestyle blogs. The focus of these blogs is generally the blogger themselves. So it helps if they are in the middle of a journey people find interesting (parenting, adoption, living with a disability, etc) or engaged in an enviable life of travel and fancy parties.

Kelly Fitzgerald Junco, a writer who uses her blog, Sober Senorita, to document her journey of sobriety, recently got a publishing deal for her upcoming memoir From Party Chica to Sober Senorita: Getting Sober in Mexico.

Lauren Juliff invites readers to follow her around the globe in her blog Never Ending Footsteps, which led to her published memoir How to Not Travel the World.

Lifestyle blogs are best suited for people who don’t mind sharing intimate details of their lives and are either in the middle of an interesting season of life or live a life readers will find exciting.

To plan out article ideas, think about exciting things you’ve done recently or plan to do in the future.

3. Book Review Blogs

Book review blogs are a creative way to grow an audience for your memoir. By reading and writing about popular books in your genre, you can grow a community of readers who might one day buy your book.

James Clear reviewed dozens of books before publishing his own, Atomic Habits.

Michael Hyatt, a former publishing CEO, helped build his personal brand by reviewing the books he helped publish, before writing several of his own.

Book review blogs are best suited for active readers who like writing reviews.

To plan out article ideas, make a list of popular books for the topic or genre you’re considering, as well as some books releasing soon that are likely to be popular.

4. Blogs About Writing

You can also build an audience through sites about writing, selling your future book as an example of the writing advice you teach.

Jeff Goins, a client of Marion’s, wrote a memoir called Wrecked: When A Broken World Slams Into Your Comfortable Life, leveraging his writing audience at GoinsWriter.com.

Joe Bunting, another of Marion’s clients and founder of The Write Practice, is writing a memoir that will be published in the near future.

And there is, of course, Marion herself, whose most recent book The Memoir Project, is entering into its 8th printing, thanks largely to the visibility created by her writing blog.

Sites about writing are best suited for writers who have experience in the field, unique insights to share, and enjoy writing practical articles.

To plan out article ideas, think about the challenges writers struggle with and how you might solve them.

5. Location-based Blogs

Blogs about a particular city or state can attract a large following and can be used to land book deals, especially for pieces that take place in the city.

Jeremiah Moss’s blog, Vanishing New York, helped him land a publishing deal for his book Vanishing New York: How a Great City Lost Its Soul.

If you’re skeptical that a blog about a city can attract readers, you might be surprised to learn that roughly 94,000 people every month Google “things to do in Chicago.” For a more niche example, over 2,000 people every month take to Google searching for “the best burger in Dallas,” which is why I wrote a post on the subject on my blog, FoodDeliveryGuru.

Location-based blogs are great for people who love their city and live somewhere with a big enough population to attract a following.

To plan out article ideas, dig into the history of your city, the attractions it offers, and keep a close eye on the news.

The Big Picture in Planning an Author Blog 

Ah, I see some hands raised. Let me answer the question I’m sure many of you are about to ask.

Yes, you can start a blog that takes advantage of more than one strategy.

Marion’s content is a mix of how-to within the topic of memoir, book reviews and her own memoir writing. Each of the approaches I mentioned can incorporate lifestyle blog elements. There’s wiggle room. 

The best blog for you is the one that attracts the type of readers who will want to buy your book. You can sell them on the topic, the entertainment value, an appreciation for other books in the genre, or on a love of you as the main character.

By starting your memoir blog with future readers in mind, and incorporating the strategies I’ve suggested, you can take a confident step toward building an audience to support your writing goals.

If you’re interested in starting a memoir blog and not sure where to start, check out this list of the tools Marion uses to run her blog.

Author bio: Kyle Young is a marketing consultant who works with big publishers and individual authors to help them grow their audience and sell more books.