If you want to turn your experience into a compelling memoir that’s read by a wide audience, something you need to clarify first and foremost is what the relatable TOPIC OR THEME is in your story.

This is how you sell a memoir when you aren’t already a famous celebrity or well-known.

Remember, people don’t buy memoir because they want to know about YOU, they buy and read memoir because it’s a compelling and relatable story.

The most efficient way I know to find your relatable theme, is to learn the four that I share in the bestselling memoir pitch guide. So if you haven’t already downloaded that, make sure you get a copy.

To write a memoir pitch that sells – or a memoir that sells, you need to clarify which of these four themes your story sits within.

These are the ONLY four topics and themes that people can relate to, otherwise known as universal themes.

Next time you’re captivated by a story, try to see which one of these themes it fits within, and you’ll understand why these are the only topics that matter to human existence!

The reason these four themes are universal, and compelling, is because change in these areas fundamentally affects our ability to survive!

So here are the only four universal themes or topics that sell:
  1.  Love, family and relationships and belonging (for example: divorce, love, marriage, gender identity, grief, abandonment, grief)
  2. HEALTH and the physical body (for example: Loss of a limb, mental illness, addiction, incredible feats of survival and transformation or weight loss…)
  3. Money and economic or material survival (for example: living on the poverty line, rags to riches tales, survival, slavery, fortune…)
  4. Influence, status and power (for example: Fame, social class, migration journeys, politics, Bernie Madoff’s tale….)

Knowing these four themes and identifying where YOUR story sits within them is going to put you and your memoir pitch MILES ahead of the pack, because you’re understanding the key concept of compelling memoir and that is RELATABILITY.

To write – and pitch – a memoir that sells, make sure you download my free guide to a bestselling memoir pitch, because I explore the other key points you need to understand about writing a memoir for the traditional marketplace.
And let me know how this lands! Where in the four topics does your story sit?

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Universal Themes in Memoir
How to write your memoir book proposal