I'm writing a book on my life, what publishers look into these type of books?

Question

Im a Mexican/American by the border of South Texas. I have a real story to tell from crime to redemption what publishing companies publish these type of books?

Answer 1

What you’re writing would be termed a memoir. What you’ll find is that in general, for publishing a memoir at any major publisher (and many minor) you need to get an agent.

To get an agent for a memoir (and all of this applies to fiction as well), you will need a complete manuscript as perfect as you can get it. These are non-negotiable prerequisites unless you’re already famous. Of course complete and good are not enough. It needs to tell an interesting story and one that will compel readers to pick up a book by someone they’ve never heard of. This is an uphill battle.

So you’ve labored with your book and it’s complete and good and interesting. Now you need to write a query letter. This is where you condense your story down to a paragraph and make it as compelling as possible (think the sort of copy you see on the dust jacket flap for a book—in some cases this has its origin in the original query letter). Some sources will say that you should talk about your potential market, but really it's enough to say what the genre of the book is (in your case, memoir. In other instances, you would say, e.g., mystery or young adult novel. Do not make the faux pas of calling a book a “fiction novel.” If it’s a basic non-genre work of fiction, it’s just a novel, full stop). I'm not going to go into the full details of writing a query letter here, just try typing “how to write a query letter” into the Google and you’ll find plenty of good advice. I would say prioritize what you hear from agents over from writers. Most writers, especially those who are successful, don't really know what makes for a successful query letter.

Your query letter is in many cases going to be the only thing that a prospective agent reads so it needs to be good. A lot of writers will cry “no fair!” at this, but in my experience, I can see the flaws of a book in miniature in the query letter. The letter that runs over a page in length (or has an author who thinks that by using small type and vanishing margins he can somehow get around the recommendation that a query letter only be one page), for example, usually accompanies a book that could and should be cut by 50% in length. A vague directionless query usually points at a vague directionless book.

Now you need to find agents to query. There are numerous resources online. I use querytracker.net but others are equally good. Look at books similar to yours and read the acknowledgments to see if the author thanked their agent. Add the agent to your query list.

Make a long list. Expect rejections. Divide the agents into buckets of good-better-best based on things like what sort of publishers they land their clients at, who their clients are, how appealing they seem from their on-line profile.

Query in batches of ten. You’ll generally hear back (if you're going to hear back at all) within a month or two. If you get nothing but form rejections, your query letter needs to be improved. If you have a good enough query letter, typically the next steps are to get a partial request and if the agent likes what they read, they'll ask for a full. If you're still getting rejections after you reach this point, it’s worth noting any feedback that the agents might give you (which is not a guarantee) and seeing if you agree and can see a way to improve the manuscript before you do the next round.

Expect to be rejected over and over again. There’s a lot of luck that comes into play and persistence can pay off but not always. Be prepared to work on the next thing.

Answer 2

The majority of memoirs are by famous people, because they are the ones who have a built in audience. It's possible to sell a memoir as an unknown if you have an extraordinary life story, but it's not common. If you're in the second category, you'll need to be a really good writer, and you'll need to write your own story as if it was a novel --meaning it will need to be entertaining. True is not enough. With that said, the crime aspect definitely helps --there's a large audience out there for crime non-fiction. (Iceberg Slim is a good example of someone who became famous from writing a gritty urban crime memoir.)

You might consider writing an autobiographical novel instead, which is fiction based on your life. The advantage is that you don't have to stick exactly to the truth. You might have fewer friends and relatives mad at you (or old enemies looking for you)! And it's typically easier to find a publisher for a novel than for a memoir.

As far as where to sell it: Most big publishers and agents will do the occasional memoir. I'm sure there are some that specialize in it, you'll need to do a search. True Crime is a recognized genre, you might do a search for that: http://agentquery.com is a good place to start. Cash Money Content is a Simon & Schuster imprint that currently owns the Iceberg Slim library --they might be a good fit for you. Another good idea is looking for a targeted niche publisher --maybe a regional one that focuses on the Southwest, or one that is promoting Latino or Mexican voices (those do exist). You might not need an agent if you are working with a smaller publisher.

Answer 3

While it's true that many people are writing memoirs these days, the key to publication is having a story worth telling--and often that comes down to how you frame it. Nobody cares about your whole life (sorry, but it's true). But if you can tie your experience to a larger cultural or geographic backdrop, it starts to get interesting. For example, racism is on a lot of people's minds today. If, say, overcoming rough childhood circumstances in an inner city got you where you are today, there's a story to tease from there that resonates with readers beyond it being YOUR life....that is, they can relate on some level. The angle you use to tell your story is often more important than the story itself.

Answer 4

You could self-publish, which is the better option as you will have to market your book no matter how it is published, unless you're an established author already.

Unless you're famous or did something truly amazing, then traditional publishers won't care about your book.

Good luck with trying to find an agent for such a memoir-style book. They know that publishers do not care about these types of books as there are millions of them being written and generally they don't sell well.