As we addressed in a previous post, assessing whether a publisher is right for your manuscript is a process that should be completed with careful and well-researched consideration. For authors of memoirs, though, it can seem especially daunting. After all, you’ve written your life’s story—trusting someone else, let alone a company, to help you share it with the world is no small endeavor.
At Josha, we’ve published several memoirs and have many more in the production process, all of which include experiences of trauma for the survivors who wrote them. No matter which publisher you consider approaching with your submission, we will always advocate for a publisher who approaches your story with integrity. Our advice is to find someone whose focus is on respecting your story and the pain you carry because of it as well as someone who can celebrate your triumphs—like writing a book—with you, rather than making a buck off a sensational story (for example, most of us have seen the media sensationalize an event without much respect for the victims/survivors, and that’s not something anyone wants to have happen with their story in any form). This means finding a company whose focus is on respecting your story as you lived it, rather than how they perceive it may be the most marketable or palatable.
In the traditional industry, publishers have to consider a variety of factors when considering a memoir manuscript. One of the first things they ask themselves is what sort of public presence the author has; for example, are they a well-known artist, or has some aspect of their story been covered by the mainstream media? If the author is not widely known, then a publisher may choose to evaluate the manuscript on its content alone, which may mean they ask the author to make some drastic changes to the length of the work. After all, printing and producing books costs a tremendous amount of money, and the publisher is a business—they’ll want to ensure they’ll be able to make the costs back plus some profits, which is a lot harder to do if the author doesn’t already have a large following.
Furthermore, if the memoir features trauma, a publisher may err on the side of extreme caution and ask the author to eliminate portions of their manuscript that delve into what trauma survival is really like. This may mean they ask the author to summarize the impact of traumatic events—rather than sharing the events in a play-by-play fashion—or request for the author to write about healing from trauma as opposed to experiencing it. Additionally, the caliber of detail a publisher permits an author to use when describing trauma may not allow the author to tell their story in all its reality; instead, a publisher may want to omit those details, lest a reviewer (i.e., money source) find the content too graphic.
At Josha, however, we don’t look for the size of an author’s following—we look for engagement within their community. And regarding the content of the memoir, while we do have flexible standards regarding graphic detail of traumatic experiences because we believe in telling the author’s story as they experienced it, we don’t seek to trigger or traumatize our readers. We do believe that addressing and discussing trauma as it really is—rather than in a way that’s perhaps most comfortable—is how authors and publishers alike are able to effect the most change with the written word, and we balance this with avoiding anything that is unnecessarily graphic by critically assessing the purpose and impact of the detail included.
The first full-length memoir we published was resilient by Katherine Turner in August of 2021. Prior to publishing her memoir through Josha, Katherine briefly considered querying larger presses for resilient. When I asked her what led to her considering that avenue—and why she ultimately decided against it—this is what she said:
“resilient is a different kind of memoir in some of the same ways that Chanel Miller’s Know My Name is different. I don’t believe there have never been memoirs written that were different in the ways that ours were, I just believe that no one had the media attention the way Chanel did when they wrote their memoir of trauma. I don’t have that media recognition, which means that I was likely going to have to make a number of concessions for my memoir, including making significant changes to shorten it and gloss over some of the more egregious trauma. When I sat and thought about how that would change my manuscript to determine if those were concessions I was willing to make, I realized they weren’t. While I’m open (and always encourage) constructive feedback that will help me to improve as a writer, I am not open to cutting out the content that will help other survivors feel truly seen and understood and will make non-survivors truly understand what it’s like to be a survivor. Is some of the content going to make people uncomfortable? Absolutely—and that’s because it should. Trauma isn’t rosy and we shouldn’t write it like it is. I realized that pursing a large press, however, would mean making my story more rosy and that was a compromise I wasn’t willing to make.”
Frankly, we couldn’t have said it better than Katherine did—and we’re honored she chose to publish resilient with us.
Whether you’re telling your life’s story to a confidant, a therapist, or writing it with the intent of publishing it, trusting someone else with your story is difficult. After all, it’s the story of your life—the story of you—and there will never be another one just like it, the same way there will never be another soul exactly like yours. When it comes to evaluating a publisher for them to consider your memoir, we encourage you to ask yourself if it seems as though the company values you and the reasons you’ve written your memoir… after all the work and heartache to do so, you want to make sure your story ends up in the hands of those it can help, in the way they need to read it.
Josha Publishing, LLC is a woman-founded, woman-owned, and woman-run company that is passionate about books, stories, and the power of words to change lives. Learn more about us here and remember to sign up for our newsletter to find out about new content, new books, and submissions update.
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