Why don't readers care about your life?

In response to 'memoirs are hard to sell'

I saw Publishing Confidential post a note about Tajja Isen’s recent essay in The Walrus headlined “Memoirs Are Almost Impossible to Sell.” The subtitle, “Publishers are turning away from personal stories. Have readers stopped caring about each other’s lives?” got me thinking about writing a post about that last sentence’s question.

There are two points of sale, here, but the headline & essay are primarily discussing the one that I too have the most familiarity with: selling a memoir to a publisher. The second point of sale that Publishing Confidential points out here I can say feels true to me but is less my area of expertise: selling a memoir to a readership. I haven’t worked on that side of the business.

So mostly I will discuss the first point of sale, how it’s felt as a literary agent to try to sell memoirs recently, and behind the paywall are some of my suspicions and theories of What’s Going On and What Could Change.