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70,000–95,000 words · from $11,400

Your memoir, written like you'd write it if you weren't tired.

Senior memoir editors and ghostwriters who know the difference between your story and the story you keep telling at parties.

Talk to the memoir team See pricing

You've started this memoir three times. You have a chapter or two written. Friends keep telling you the story should be a book. Two things are true: they're right, and you don't have the time.

What memoir actually is

A memoir is not your autobiography. The autobiography is the whole life. The memoir is the slice of the life — one relationship, one season, one decision, one place — that contains a question the reader is also living.

That distinction is where most first drafts fail. Authors write the autobiography, then wonder why the agent rejection says “no clear narrative arc.” The arc is the question. The decision is the spine. The slice is the book.

This is what Maya does on the first call. She does not ask “tell me about your life.” She asks “what is the question your life is the answer to.” And then she helps you find the slice that answers it.

Who buys this

Three patterns, roughly equal share. Authors in their late 50s and 60s who have a single defining story they want their grandchildren to read. Founders or professionals (doctors, lawyers, journalists) in their 40s and 50s writing a category memoir that becomes a calling card. And people in their late 20s and 30s writing a slice memoir — a year, a city, a relationship — under their real name or a thin pen name.

Different audiences, same problem: the story is real, the writing is the bottleneck.

Memoir mood

What memoir feels like, in five frames.

Visual reference for the voice, palette, and reader mood the books in this category live in.

Sub-genres we work in

The memoir categories with their own conventions.

Sub-genres each have their own structural rules, word-count norms, and reader expectations. We assign by sub-genre, not just by parent.

Sub-genre Family memoir Sub-genre Recovery memoir Sub-genre Travel memoir Sub-genre Professional memoir (doctor, lawyer, journalist) Sub-genre Founder memoir / executive memoir Sub-genre Coming-of-age memoir Sub-genre Loss & grief memoir Sub-genre Public-figure memoir (under NDA)

Genre conventions

The rules we will not break unless you ask.

Every category has conventions its readers expect. The right time to break them is on purpose, with eyes open. The wrong time is by accident.

  • First person, past tense, in nearly every case.
  • Two timelines (now and then), with a connective tissue paragraph for each chapter.
  • Composite characters where the legal risk is real; identifying details changed early and consistently.
  • Author photo on the inside back flap, not the front cover.
  • Memoir titles that name a specific noun, not a vague theme. "The blue tin" beats "finding myself."

Sample covers

Memoir covers we shipped this year.

Each cover is a real project. Drag through to see the visual language we work in for this category.

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Comp titles

Books that share your shelf, and the choice we'd ask you to make about which one to compete on.

On the discovery call, we ask which two of these your book most resembles, and which one you refuse to be compared to. The answer shapes the outline.

  • Educated Tara Westover
  • The Glass Castle Jeannette Walls
  • Crying in H Mart Michelle Zauner
  • Heavy Kiese Laymon

Genre lead

Maya Rosenberg reads every memoir brief that comes through the door.

The same person reads your brief, joins the discovery call, and signs off every chapter. No rotating account managers.

Leads Memoir & business-book editing

Maya Rosenberg

Senior Memoir Editor, 11 yrs

Memoirist's editor. Worked on the development of seven memoirs that hit the NYT or Wall Street Journal lists between 2018 and 2025. Specialty is interviewing reluctant authors out of the third chapter and into the seventeenth.

  • Developmental edit on Letters We Never Sent (Scribner, 2023) — WSJ bestseller
  • Ghost-edit on three executive memoirs whose authors she still cannot name
  • Guest lecturer, NYU Center for Publishing, memoir track
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Case study

Letters from the Last Year

by Sharon Linen Fordham, Retired ICU nurse; first-time author ASIN B0CM7K9PXJ

The brief
Sharon had the rawest possible material — handwritten letters to Joel during his illness — and zero structure for a book. She had started typing a memoir three times and abandoned it. The voice was already there, in the letters. The problem was that letters do not make a book on their own.
The outcome
Hit #3 in Amazon's Memoir > Personal sub-category in launch week. Sustained top-25 for 11 weeks. Earned 247 verified reviews at 4.8 stars in the first 90 days. Sharon was invited onto two podcasts she'd never have approached cold (one a former ICU patient who recognized her hospital's name in the manuscript). Now in soft conversation with a traditional publisher about a hardcover edition for 2026.
  • #3 Amazon Memoir > Personal, launch month
  • 247 verified reviews in 90 days
  • 4.8★ average rating, 90 days post-launch
  • 11 weeks in top-25 of subcategory
Read the full case study
Memoir — what a project looks like 01:08 60-second tour of a memoir engagement from outline to launch.

Services for this genre

What a typical engagement looks like.

The studio

The team behind every genre.

See the full team →

Memoir ghostwriting — FAQ

Questions we get from memoir authors every week.

How do I write about real people who didn't agree to be in my book?

Three legal moves, in this order. Change identifying details (name, city, profession, age) consistently across the manuscript. Use composite characters where two minor figures can become one. For the rare passage that names someone unambiguously, we recommend either a pre-publication legal read by a media-law attorney, or a softening of the prose. Maya will flag every passage that worries her during the developmental edit.

Will my memoir sound like me, or like the writer?

Like you. We capture voice from your interview transcripts, your existing writing (texts, emails, journal pages if you'll share them), and from a voice sample we make you approve before we draft a single chapter. If the voice isn't right, the writer is re-cast at no charge.

What if I cry in the interview?

That's the interview. Memoir interviews go places. The recordings are encrypted, the transcripts are stored in a shared folder only your writer can see, and we don't move on from a section until you tell us we can. Maya has run more than seventy memoir interview series. She knows when to slow down.

Do I have to publish under my real name?

No. About 1 in 8 memoir clients publish under a pen name, a partial-initial name, or anonymously. The legal arrangement is the same — you own the rights, we ghostwrite, you decide how it's credited. Common patterns: "M. Linen" instead of "Maya Linen," or a full pseudonym with a separate Amazon account.

Should I write the memoir myself instead of hiring a ghostwriter?

If you have the time and the discipline, yes. We have a free 12-page "Memoir Toolkit" PDF that walks through how to outline a memoir yourself. The clients who hire us are the ones who tried and stalled, or who don't want to spend 400 hours on it.

How long is a memoir, really?

The sellable range is 65,000 to 95,000 words. Under 60,000 reads as thin in the category; over 100,000 starts to feel undisciplined unless the structure carries the length. We aim for 78,000 by default and adjust during the outline.

Can I include photos in the print edition?

Yes, an 8 or 16-page photo insert is standard for memoir. We help you select, scan, and license the photos. Family photos are easy; archive photos (newspapers, public events) may need licence fees we'll quote at the time.

Other genres

Twelve in total. Different team for each.

Ready when you are

Ready to talk about your memoir project?

A 30-minute discovery call with a senior editor — no sales script, no pressure. We'll tell you whether we're the right fit for your project, what it would cost, and how long it would take.

Book a discovery call See pricing