A Consistently Popular Genre
In a way, each person's life is a story. People love stories and perhaps that explains why the biography has always been one of the bestselling genres. People are also intrigued by the lives of others — the famous, the infamous, and even the not-so-famous if the story is compelling. If you decide to write a biography, it will likely be an endeavor that is fulfilling and fun.
“Stories … told you how people felt, what they saw and heard, and how they lived. That was the important thing: They were part of a world, one that maybe didn't exist anymore, but that was the only way you could know it.” — Henry Roth, Mercy of a Rude Stream
Biographies not only inform the reader about a person's life, but they also open a window to the world in which that person dwelled. Sometimes, it's the time period or an historical event or the people the subject came into contact with that's intriguing, which is why a biography can be written about an individual who, in and of herself, is not very well known. So, if there's someone's life story that fascinates you or the era in which your subject lived intrigues you and your subject is the perfect vehicle to explore that world, it just might be that writing a biography is for you. If this is the case then you are looking at an enormous market for your project.
Many Categories to Choose From
By some counts, there are more than 56,000 biographies in print. However, the figure is high because booksellers provide wide latitude for crossover among the genres of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Since you'll learn about writing memoirs in Chapter 18, the term biography here usually means the account of a life written by someone other than the subject.
There are numerous divisions in the biography genre. Some of the most popular categories are:
Celebrities
Historical biographies
Scientists and inventors
Politicos
Sports and adventure
Scholars and specialists
Family memoirs
Business biography
