The Memoir Cover Stereotype

Instead of a book review, today I’m posting a custom creation of mine: a version of the stereotypical cover for a memoir.

Look familiar? Although this book is entirely made up as well the author whose name is on the cover, this cover is done in a similar style to a variety of memoirs (as well as other nonfiction books, especially those focusing on economics and logic), and you probably have seen at least one example of this cover style. If not, do some googling of memoirs, you will definitely find an example.

Let’s check if my example has all the stereotypical elements of this kind of cover:

• Solid Color background (most often white, but maybe another color)- ✅
• The title, most likely one word long and written in a Serif font-✅
• Image of a mundane object, most likely a stock image found easily on Google-✅
• A little sentence about the themes of the inspiring story inside of the book-✅
• Some inspiring praise from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, or a similar prestigious book reviewer, maybe with a proclamation about being on a bestseller list to add emphasis- ✅

So hopefully now you learned where that deja vu came from.

Let’s hope that despite these stereotypical covers, the actual stories inside are actually decent, which they probably will be because the cover makes the author’s story look so inspiring. Have fun!