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Reader comment on:
Why Publishers Don't Fact-Check Memoirs

Submitted by mike, Mar 5, 2008 17:34

The most unfortunate part of this situation, in my opinion, is that these recent incidents only further undermine the trust between author and reader. As luck would have it, the week my literary agent and I first approached publishers with my addiction memoir, "An Officer and A Junkie: From West Point to the Point of No Return", James Frey was being exposed as a fraud. All the publishers immediately turned us down; no one wanted to touch another memoir, let alone one on addiction. We realized that we had to do something intrinsically unique and different to confirm the veracity of my story and reestablish faith with the reader. Ultimately, we decided to insert source material in my memoir, including documents such as police records, officer evaluation reports, hospital records, and journal entries. In hindsight, transforming my book into the first "documented memoir" is one of the most important decisions I've made for my story. I hope that I am setting something of a precedent, because right now the state of memoirs is in rather poor condition and something needs to be done in the future to ensure some level of authenticity. For more information, please visit my website at: www.michaelwinder.com.

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Other reader comments on this article

Comment	By	Date
More necessary than fact checkers are editors with some smarts. One has to ponder how this absurd story got past... [MORE]	Mona	Mar 6, 2008 11:43
The most unfortunate part of this situation, in my opinion, is that these recent incidents only further undermine the trust...	mike	Mar 5, 2008 17:34
I fail to be astonished with stories like these anymore. Apparently it's easier to lie about things that never happened then... [MORE]	Adaora	Mar 5, 2008 14:12
Since the concept of "it takes a village to raise a child" has been the heart of tribal culture (and... [MORE]	Kit Prate	Mar 5, 2008 13:18
You don't have to fact-check to the extent of The New Yorker to find out if a memoir is completely... [MORE]	Tim Jackson	Mar 5, 2008 10:36
Oh, come on! They pay factcheckers with graduate degrees ten dollars an hour. At that rate how long much would... [MORE]	Nancy Seitz	Mar 5, 2008 10:12
As a former fact checker, I can say that it's rare for a reputable publication to pay $10 an hour.... [MORE]	Mona	Mar 6, 2008 10:38
Every publisher's contract includes a 'liability clause' in which the author takes responsibility for what is on the page. And... [MORE]	Litwit	Mar 6, 2008 18:43
I found this quote very interesting: Most books are already commercial failures, failing to earn back what you pay to acquire,... [MORE]	Kit Prate	Mar 7, 2008 19:21
People have such weird ideas about how publishing works. The many books that don't work commercially, are supported by those... [MORE]	Litwit	Mar 8, 2008 09:29
Thanks for the enlightenment. However, the foreign publishing thing? It happened to me; twice. The first time the issue was... [MORE]	Kit Prate	Mar 9, 2008 18:29

Reader comment on:Why Publishers Don't Fact-Check Memoirs

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Why Publishers Don't Fact-Check Memoirs