Writing a memoir? Read this.

Your story is important — to you.

But — and I’m going to say something that may sound incredibly harsh and mean, maybe even condescending — it doesn’t necessarily matter to anyone else.

Something publishers, editors and agents know about personal stories — that most people outside the industry do not — is that a story has to be transcendent in order to sell.

What that means is that it’s not enough to have had crazy life experiences, or to be unusual, or to be a member of a larger group (say, of cancer survivors).

Instead, those experiences — and how you write about them — have to resonate with people. Readers have to see themselves in it. A good example is Tara Westover’s Educated, a huge bestseller last year. That book was successful in part because Tara is an amazing writer but also because her story resonated with people like me who grew up in rural America and who know families like hers that feel left behind. The entire time I was reading that book (as well as Sarah Smarsh’s Heartland, which has similar themes) I was thinking about the rural area in Wisconsin where I grew up.

In short — the writing has to be good.

Not just good, but excellent.

The writing has to stand out and usually be emblematic of something else going on in the…