Warning: Writing This Type Of Book Can Ruin Your Life

Memoirs.

Everybody says they want to write one, but sometimes that isn’t what they’re writing.

As both a ghostwriter and a book coach, I’ve worked on many memoirs.

ANd refused to work on these “Others”

What are these “others?”

The authors think they’re memoirs, but they're not.

They’re actually Revenge books.

What's a Revenge book?

They look like this;

✨Tells your side of the story

✨Attempts to bring someone to justice with words

Books should lift someone (the reader) up, but revenge books are about dragging somebody down. but the truth is the only one they really destroy is you.

In order to write a Revenge book, you have to completely immerse yourself in something you never really got over. That’s bad for both mental health and your book.

People think revenge books are a good idea is because we often see tell-all books about celebrities or exposes about institutions.

But these are celebrities.

It totally does not work for a person that the reader does not know. They don't care about your revenge.

They're not going to pick up a book unless it inspires them and leaves them with a Happy Feeling. In Revenge books Never Leave anybody with a happy feeling. In fact, most revenge books are downright depressing and have soul-destroying endings.

The first time I ever met a Revenge book was with this woman I’ll call Anna. I was still a ghostwriter, and we were talking about her book. She talked about setting the record straight about this guy who'd committed a bunch of crimes and served a nominal jail sentence. She was still furious at him, but this book is a bad idea for so many reasons.

For starters, he can sue her for libel.

Second of all, he’d done far worse to people who aggravated him far less.

So I asked her: Why write this book?

Revenge she told me.

OH HECK NO.

I informed her I was not going to be working on this book.

I don't know whatever happened to her. I don't know if she ever wrote this book with somebody else, but I really hope she didn't.

That book isn’t going to benefit anyone, least of all, her.

Now, it's fine to write tell-all book about an industry practice that needs to be looked at (10 Days In A Madhouse was such a book.) but when you soak a book in hatred for a person instead of for an activity, it will never end in your favor.

So tonight, take a good hard look at that Memoir you're writing. Is it really a memoir or is it a Revenge book?

And if it is a Revenge book, can you write it in such a way that it's not?