Memoirs

Tell Your Story

Posted on by Brenda Poulos

If you watched the Republican National Convention this past week, you heard from average Americans who had been invited to speak. We hung on their every word—a testimony to the power of story.

This experience reminded me of why biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs have become so popular. 

We all love a good story. If you have one, tell it.

If you know someone with a meaningful story, encourage them to share it.

There will always be a thread of truth that will tug at someone else’s soul—a common theme or experience that will resonate with them.

And that, my friends, has the power to echo into eternity.

 What Do Readers Want in 2024???

Posted on by Brenda Poulos

If you are an author that writes according to the trends of the reading audience, I suggest looking back at what the most popular trends were in 2023 and take your writing in one of those directions.

Remember, however, popularity of genres change from year to year—even season to season.

So you may want to stick with your current genre or try your hand at one of these rising stars:

Romance was #1, again! (No surprise). However, a new kind of romance has taken readers by storm in the last year or so. It is called Romantasy (Adult Romance Fantasy). Other new twists were Sports Romance and Dark Romance.

Also, rising to popularity are stories about robots and other AI-related.

Crime fiction always gets lots of readers, but a new twist are those whose targets are authors. Yikes! (An upcoming movie soon to be on the big screen—if you are interested— is on this very subject).

I don’t want to forget to mention memoirs, satires, and short story collections.

Finally, this one might surprise you. There seems to be a resurgence of re-reading favorite books.

Ahhh, Romance!

Posted on by Brenda Poulos

 

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Since we celebrated Valentine’s Day this weekend, I thought I would stick with that theme for this post, supplying the latest statistics for writing genres.

It turns out that Adult Romance comes in a close second to general fiction in popularity with readers.

Romance is eighth on the list of which genres agents request, but the American Romance Writers survey places it at number one.

However, there is no disputing that Romance novels make the most money.

Not to leave you non-fiction folks out, it looks like Memoirs are tops in all categories.

So, if you’re new to writing and just now deciding which genre you will write in, the advice is to simply write in the genre you like the best and are most comfortable writing in. 

If you try to follow trends, it is likely you will be disappointed. By the time you get your book written and published, a new trend will have been established.