How to write an autobiography: Focus on what’s remarkable in your life

By Dennis Mellersh

For most of us, writing an autobiography, or a book-length story of our own life, would result in a book that would only be of interest to readers among our family and close friends.

It is true that everyone’s life is significant and that everyone’s life is important. We all affect people in important ways that we may not even realize. Indeed, as an insightful quotation reads, “To the world you are one person but to one person you may mean the world.”

However, for the majority of people, writing a full-length autobiography about our lives and then expecting it to be of interest a wide number of people is probably unrealistic.

However, it may well be realistic to consider that certain autobiographical aspects of each of our lives could be meaningful and of great interest to a large number of readers.

For example, I am a writer, and I have made a living as a writer for all of my adult life, 25 years of which have been as a self-employed independent writer. So, earning my livelihood as a writer is a major biographical component of my life.

However, a full-length book or autobiography about my overall life in general would attract little attention.

But how about the following as a possible specifically focussed shorter book:

“How I’ve made a Successful Living as an Independent Freelance Writer for 25 years”

A smaller book like this, based on one important aspect of my autobiographical details, could be a good candidate for a book with a specialty publisher.  Or it might be more suitable for production through one of the self-publishing services such as those available on Amazon.com and other venues.

So, look at and examine your entire life; focus on one or more of the remarkable elements of your life and you may find that there is an autobiography-based book waiting to be written that will interest a particular element of the reading public.