Julie Broad breaks down three forms: memoirs focus on emotions and lessons in non-chronological order, autobiographies tell your whole life chronologically in first person, and biographies are third-party research accounts. Anne Frank wrote a memoir, Michelle Obama an autobiography, and Walter Isaacson wrote Steve Jobs' biography.
Chapters
The nonfiction world is a deep, deep world full of all kinds of fabulous books, from business books to self help to how to true crime memoirs and more. At Book Launchers, we like all kinds of books to deliver their content with story so that the book is more interesting. After all, we're all about no boringbooks, and a book without any stories is really just a textbook. And most of us read textbooks because we had to, not because we wanted to. But when you get into the different categories that are solely story driven, like memoir, autobiography and biography, you might be wondering what the heck is the difference and does it matter? If you're curious about what the difference is, well then this video is for you. Hey there. I'm Julie the book Broad, founder of Book Launchers, your fabulous full service self publishing company. We work mostly on self help, fitness and business books, but we find that a lot of those kind of books can also cross into memoir. So. So we do end up writing, coaching and working on memoir style books. But what makes a memoir different than a biography or an autobiography? Well, a memoir is a story written by the subject of the book, but it's told with the emotional implications of what happened more than the emphasis on the events that are told. An autobiography is also written by the subject of the book, but it's focused more on the events of the life. A biography is written by someone other than the subject, and while the subject may be interviewed for it, it's usually written using sources like interviews, news articles, and other accounts of the events around that story. I think about them like this. Reading an autobiography is reading a first person account of a person's life. You're walking a mile in the subject's shoes, seeing the world through their eyes as they share their experiences. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank was one that I read in school decades ago, but it stuck with me forever. You literally feel like you're experiencing the things she felt. Another one I read that I found really memorable was the Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band. I didn't even mean to read that book, but one of my friends read it and was raving about it. I picked it up at a store and started to read it and I had to buy it. Walking in Motley Crue's Shoes to get the behind the scenes was as entertaining as it was eye opening. Becoming by Michelle Obama may be a more famous one that you're familiar with. Ultimately the story is told as facts, but because it's based on the memory and the lens of the author it's not necessarily historically accurate, but rather it's one view of what happened. Unlike a memoir, which shouldn't be written chronologically, an autobiography is usually written on a timeline where you hit major milestones through childhood, then carrying through significant events of their life. Now usually these are about a person, but sometimes they can be about an event. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer details the event of a bone chilling Mount Everest climb where eight people died. Like Anne Frank's book, that one haunts me. His description of the bodies on the mountain left there was something I had no knowledge of before I read that book. A biography is something that is written about someone else based on research and interviews. Elon Musk has had a lot of biographies written about him. Steve. Steve Jobs had a great biography written about him. I would also classify Bad Blood as a biography. I can't wait for the movie version of that book. By the way, such a great read. I've been watching Super Pumped the TV show and loving the startup drama of that show and I think Bad Blood was a way better book. So anyways, side note, but biographies tend to be written by journalists or people with a deep fanatical like interest in a subject because they're gonna go deep on the research to be able to tell that story. But that leads me into one final question and the one we do work on quite a lot at Book Launchers and that is what is a memoir? Well, a memoir is a personal narrative. It's not a chronological story. It's more about the outcome of the story and what needs to be told to deliver that outcome. It will focus on feelings, experiences and memoir memories. Memoirs Memoies Mem wees A memoir will focus on experiences, feelings and memories that need to be shared to communicate the message of the memoir. To me, memoir is something that shares life lessons and passes on those lessons versus telling the story from start to finish. In many ways, a memoir is more about teaching and sharing than telling a chronological story. Like an autobiography. Biographies require extensive research and are big projects. Now you might be wondering about writing a memoir. If you are, this right here is the perfect video to watch after this. It will help you avoid common memoir writing mistakes. If you're good on that, then YouTube believes you'll really love this video here. Either way, let's be friends. So say hello in the comments below and then head to the next video where I'm waiting for you.
