I want to publish my memoir

Q I want to publish my memoir. I may self-publish. What do you recommend? T. Mulcahy, Galway.

A Sadly, most people have a story that nobody wants to hear. This is not as unreasonable as it may seem. Some people are boring, in person and in speech, no less than in print.

You have to ask if your story will be more than a collection of letters lined up to be divided into words, sentences, paragraphs and chapters, or will it make sense to a sane third party.

If that third party is a publisher who says no thank you, and changes their telephone number, then re-consider your plan to be a go-it-alone entrepreneuring publisher.

There are many printers who will happily quote you for printing and binding the specified words in return for advance payment.

Once bound and delivered to you, your task will be to shift copies out of their temporary resting place in your wardrobe and into readers’ hands and minds.

You do this be selling or giving as many of them away as possible.

You should then post to yourself, as publisher, your proposal for a follow-up title. If you find yourself contemplating a change of phone number to avoid the author, you should perhaps get out more.

Eddie