• According to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks about 70 percent of US book sales, total sales in the categories of Personal Memoirs, Childhood Memoirs, and Parental Memoirs increased more than 400% between 2004 and 2008, with growth continuing.
• Women, especially middle-aged women, are the largest book-buying demographic. There are 157 million women in the United States, and a story about the mother-daughter bond has strong appeal.
• Books on death and dying, grief and grieving sell well (Tuesdays with Morrie is the best-selling memoir of all time on Amazon).
• 289,00 women die in childbirth annually worldwide. Maternal deaths related to childbirth in the US are at the highest rate in a quarter century, more than triple that in the United Kingdom.
• 1 in 7 Americans loses a parent or sibling before the age of 20. (Comfort Zone Camp).