To Publish or Not to Publish?

Posted by Dulcinea Norton-Smith Jul 12, 2008

In my recent interviews with genealogists and designers of autobiography software I have regularly asked the question "Are you writing an autobiography?" and "When you write about your family or life who do you picture as your audience?". The answers are sometimes surprising.

This began my train of thought on the reasons for writing a memoir, biography or autobiography. It seems that, in deciding whether to write for personal reasons or write for publication, not all genres are equal.

Here are my theories:

• Biographies are almost almost written with publication in mind, often commissioned by academic publishing houses. It is a rare thing to want to spend years researching and writing about a person you don't know and not to have some publication aim at the end of it.
• Autobiographies are largely the domain of well known people and celebrities (and often written by ghost writers). Once again the aim is often publication, although this area of the genre is a bit more likely than biographies to be written for personal reasons.
• Memoirs have recently enjoyed a prime spot in the best seller lists. As a result more and more memoirs are being written with publication in mind. Despite this, however, memoirs are possibly the most likely area of the genre to be written for personal reasons such as documenting a loved one's life or writing about a traumatic experience for therapeutic reasons.

So there you go. Not very scientific but a nice enough thought for the day.