Wordcount on memoirs?

I've never heard of a industry standard. Shorter is always better for publication, but if the story is good, they publisher will pick up a longer one.

So there isn't a case where it's to short? What if it ends up just being chapbook length? (18,000 words)

It depends on the publisher.

The typical memoirs that have passed me have been about 50-75K long. But I wouldn't call that a standard, as I've only read a handful for college.

What about 30,000 words. I had it at 67,000 and one agent said the writing was good but it lost her. So I slimmed it down to 30,000 and used her suggestions. I resubmitted it to her in February but nothing yet. I only put in the horrific events, flashed backed with happier moments. The amount I took out is going to make my second book which will be funny and light hearted. My first life story is called The "Ex-wife Chronicles" which is the darkness of my marriage and my second is the "Diary of a Left handed, A.D.D. Dyslexic", very funny and lighthearted.....now to find someone willing to read them. Got my third one in the wings in outline only.....

Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

30,000 words will be a hard sell. 50-100K is acceptable industry standard for memoirs.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal

I was just looking for this. I'm at 20,000 words on the first draft with roughly 1/3 or maybe 1/2 written. I know that as I go back and edit the word count will change.

For some reason, i seem to be getting caught up in the word count when the story gets hard to write. It's bugging me a little....I want to make sure that it is enough while at the same time, telling the story. I feel like I need to focus less on word count (yet here I am in this thread! LOL)

Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

Don't go to high, Pushing. 100K would be pushing it. (Pun intended.)

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal

Hello.

To boost wordcount, perhaps you could digress into explaining the back-story of certain things that happened in your life (for instance, if you were caught up in a major world event you can discuss the history of the event and how it has affected other people.)

Or if you have an interesting medical condition, find other people who have also suffered from it, especially if they are celebrities.

Sometimes broadening the memoir can make it more interesting....

I am traditionally published and my memoir was 50,000 words when I submitted it. The publisher said that is about the lowest word count they would publish. By the time we were through with editing, it was 60,000. There's another thing to consider here. More words is not necessarily better - and often is worse. So, my advice would be to write the best memoir you can, keeping your writing tight and making each word, phrase, paragraph...deserve to be there. When you're done, you can always add. But most people don't have that problem. Most are too wordy. ~Karen

Well, this certainly helped me....Thanks guys. Now to find the time to actually work on it.....I really wish I could retire......well, maybe if I sat down and did this, I would get published and COULD retire to write......

Siri Kirpal said:

Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

30,000 words will be a hard sell. 50-100K is acceptable industry standard for memoirs.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal

Click to expand...

this is good to know, I've been quitely working on a memoir that I may even use a pen name for, that may be on the longer side... many of the stories are like a massive car wreck you can't help but stand there staring going

milkweed said:

this is good to know, I've been quitely working on a memoir that I may even use a pen name for, that may be on the longer side... many of the stories are like a massive car wreck you can't help but stand there staring going

Click to expand...

I know how you feel. My memoir started at 160K and I've got it down to around 90K. My editing keeps changing things and that drives me even crazier.

Candy

I read that the ideal length for a memoir is as much as it takes to tell the story, and no more.

Standard: 60,000 to 120,000 or more words

New Author: Around 75,000 words

What it takes to tell the story is a good way to put it. Don't use tricks to pad the word count thinking that making it longer will make it more impressive - that's deceiving the reader.

But don't rush through the telling of your story either. You may find it's bigger than you thought.

My memoir is 43,000 words. I toyed with the idea of adding new elements for the sole purpose of upping my word count, but have laid that to rest. The story is complete as it is and I think it is good.

I like whoever said that it's length is a function of however many words it takes to tell the story.

Kris