Last week, I realized I needed to acknowledge to myself that I was in the end stage before publication of writing my memoir. For one thing, I finally came up with a name—French Boy / Growing Up Franco-American—that I’m likely to keep. (So many titles in the trash!) This title reveals the content of the […]

Last week, I realized I needed to acknowledge to myself that I was in the end stage before publication of writing my memoir. For one thing, I finally came up with a name—French Boy / Growing Up Franco-American—that I’m likely to keep. (So many titles in the trash!) This title reveals the content of the memoir—a good title has to position a book for its audience. A good title says: “This book is for you.”

My natural audience

Since I am a self-publisher, I am super aware of audience. While I believe that anyone might enjoy reading French Boy—do I flatter myself that it is insightful in presenting its theme?—but I know its natural audience is the Franco-American (francophone Canadian-American) who grew up in the mid-century. That is the person who will go on a search for such a book. That person will say, “I’ve been waiting for French Boy.”

That audience has searched for my mother’s memoir, We Were Not Spoiled, and has downloaded it several thousand times. I find that incredible that so many people have downloaded the life of an ordinary (albeit lovely) woman whose memoir spans the years 1921 to 1952. (I stopped the story in 1952 and then picked up the thread in French Boy.)

The readers for my own memoir are largely the same and so I am confident about reaching them. While I hope many, many different people will want to read my memoir, I don’t want to take my natural audience for granted. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]