Non Fiction Proposals for memoirs- yes, no, maybe so?

Questions for the resident (former) agent
Post Reply
JuiceinLA
Posts: 47
Joined: April 30th, 2010, 7:46 pm
Contact:

Non Fiction Proposals for memoirs- yes, no, maybe so?

Post by JuiceinLA » September 29th, 2010, 1:09 pm

Hi Nathan, I am a bit frustrated with the genre my unpublished book falls into (Memoirs), in part because I am never really sure which rules to follow in querying for a memoir, i.e.; non-fiction or fiction rules. As I muck through it , I keep coming across conflicting advice. This weekend at a writer's conference several successful memoir writers spoke and some indicated they in fact submitted Non-Fiction Proposals with their queries, some didn't. I have never done this, and wonder if I have now been doing it wrong.

Is it expected/the norm that a query for a memoir will include a non-fiction proposal? If not, when is it appropriate?

Thank you!

User avatar
Nathan Bransford
Posts: 1553
Joined: December 4th, 2009, 11:17 pm
Location: Pasadena, CA
Contact:

Re: Non Fiction Proposals for memoirs- yes, no, maybe so?

Post by Nathan Bransford » September 30th, 2010, 1:32 am

JuiceinLA wrote:Hi Nathan, I am a bit frustrated with the genre my unpublished book falls into (Memoirs), in part because I am never really sure which rules to follow in querying for a memoir, i.e.; non-fiction or fiction rules. As I muck through it , I keep coming across conflicting advice. This weekend at a writer's conference several successful memoir writers spoke and some indicated they in fact submitted Non-Fiction Proposals with their queries, some didn't. I have never done this, and wonder if I have now been doing it wrong.

Is it expected/the norm that a query for a memoir will include a non-fiction proposal? If not, when is it appropriate?

Thank you!
I'd just send a query about the project without attaching the proposal, though as always I recommend pasting in some material below the query in the body of the e-mail, such as the overview or some of the sample pages. I'd avoid sending attachments, even if it worked for some people.

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 14 guests