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TORN From the Inside Out & THE JOURNEY

 MEMOIRS In 1973,  a young woman, barely sixteen years old, and a zealous member of a cultist religious group, married a twenty-three year-o...

Showing posts with label trends in books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trends in books. Show all posts

Saturday, August 31, 2013

Memoirs: A New Trend

Twenty-five memoirs made the New York Times bestseller list the week  ending August 17, of this year (2013), (http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/combined-print-and-e-book-nonfiction/list.html , with many of these memoirs having led the market as bestsellers for many weeks in a row. This count does not include the many self-published memoirists who have had success with child abuse memoirs such as Why Me by Sarah Burleton and Empty Chairs by Stacey Danson. The reading public is discovering that the stories of ordinary people who have lived extraordinary lives, or who have survived unusual experiences, provide the material for memorable memoirs, that is, when they are well written. The big publishing houses are beginning to see the light as they accept more memoirs into their elite collection of promoted authors, such as Brain On Fire by Susannah Cahalan, a story of a woman whose diagnoses of a rare brain disease mesmerized the medical profession. The landscape of the publishing industry has really changed, and so has the image of the simple memoir, since the early days of book publishing.
When I was young (never mind my age), only memoirs about mega stars like Elizabeth Taylor would gain enough interest to win a place on the New York Times bestseller list; and then many celebrities began to write memoirs about the mundane aspects of their daily lives, bringing their huge following of admirers into the book market. The publishing houses could get a two for one deal when they signed a big name star who came prepackaged for instant success, and the unknown memoirist did not stand a chance at that time…then the technological advances of our new cyber age, catapulted us into a raging eBook revolution in which many indie authors became overnight successes, and being an ‘unknown’ author no longer mattered. What did this mean for the memoir author?

Perhaps it was about that time,  the idea began to grow in the minds of those less well known, or even totally unknown, that their own lives of tragedy and chaos, disaster and suspense, might actually hold some value in the trained eye of the reading public. There are countless stories in life that are truly stranger than fiction, and some of these stories began to be told by talented authors, many of whom were unknowns, that is, until their lives were plastered all over the world in multiple languages.

So what is it that makes a memoir an appealing read?

The age old literary advice given by most writing instructors, is to “write what you know”, and the second piece of advice is to write it well. When the elements of a good story occur naturally in life, and the conflict, plot and timing is just right, you have more than a personal narrative, you have a ‘memoir’.  A well written memoir concentrates an entire life, with all of its obstacles, secret heartaches and successes into a literary capsule, gift-wrapped in a neat cover, and ready to open and read.

Sara Niles Author of Torn From the Inside Out (A Memoir)


Thursday, August 15, 2013

Sex Sells, and it Sells Best in Fantasy Form

By Sara Niles Author of Torn From the Inside Out

The remarkably successful Fifty Shades of Grey by Erica James, or E.L. James, was so successful that it reportedly sold one paperback book per second during the summer of 2012, according to Barbara Walters (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzRbcL-a6M8), to become the fastest selling paperback of all time. The subject matter of Fifty Shades of Grey revolved around sex, but not just regular sex, all forms of sex: bondage and masochism are included, or should we say it is highlighted.
In USA Today (http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2012/12/19/james-interview-fifty-shades/1767497/, James says in an interview that women all want romance and fantasy, or in other words, most women want to escape into a world of romantic fantasy and forget the chores and the mundane day to day pressures of life; whereas men prefer to escape into a world in which power, action and adventure predominates. The most noticeable gender difference between book buyers is reflected in books sales data. Women are the overall biggest book buyers. In a 2010 news article it was stated that women make up over 60 percent of book buyers and the average age of those women is over 40 (http://seattletimes.com/html/books/2012801171_litlife06.html).
So to recap the idea of break through novels in the book world, women evidently control the market. To test that theory out: Amanda Hocking sold over a million eBooks in which romance and the paranormal made up the plot, Danielle Steele (never forget the mega romance author), who has become her own brand, has sold from 600 to 800 million copies (depending of the source of the count) of her romance novels, which is getting close to the one billion sales mark. The subject matter of Steele’s books deals primarily with romance in every possible setting, and the majority of the buyers are women.
Most recently, Colleen Hoover penned romance novels that appeared to be aimed at the young adult audience, although the numbers of her sales suggest older buyers. The subject? Yes, it is romance and sexy romance (http://bloodybookaholic.blogspot.com/2013/05/review-hopeless-by-colleen-hoover-must.html). I could go on and on, but the finalize the point: if you want to attract the most eager buying crowd , it may be a good idea to write steamy romance aimed at the young adult crowd, while knowing the 42 year-old female buying power will back it up.

I don ‘ write romance novels,and even if I did, there would be no guarantee that I would be able to ‘break into’ the crowded market. When you read the success stories of the authors who have made it big, you find a common denominator in many of the success formulas: luck and timing.

So keep writing and hope for luck, and be ready when the timing is just right.