How to Craft an Excerpt From Your Book

Publishing an excerpt is a great way to promote your upcoming memoir. But figuring out how to do it can be a challenge. We asked four successful writers to share their process.

Photo by Jessica Bal/Narratively archive

With the 2025 Narratively Memoir Prize underway (and the December 7 deadline fast approaching!), we thought now was a good time to share this story, in which several writing luminaries were kind enough to offer their advice on how exactly they carved out successful essays — sometimes several — from their own books. Read on, give it a try yourself and submit your excerpt for the prize. Happy carving!

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Last month, I received an email from nonfiction book coach Joelle Hann sharing the one question she gets a lot from clients: “How do I shape a part of my book for publication as a standalone essay?” She wondered if Narratively had a resource that spoke to this. We didn’t — yet. We’ve also had a lot of writers reach out to ask if they can submit an excerpt from their book to the Narratively Memoir Prize. The answer is yes! But the question remains: how to craft the very best excerpt from a book-length work? 

I attempted to write an essay from my in-progress memoir a few years ago but felt like the first draft didn’t quite work. The way I’d constructed it left too many questions, which I wasn’t sure how to answer without the piece ballooning into something much longer. I put it in a drawer for another day. But faced with the question head-on now, I wanted to know, too. So, I decided to pick the brains of four nonfiction writers who have written excerpts I love — and successfully placed them in The New York Times, The New Yorker and Narratively — to see how exactly they did it. 

Robert Kerbeck

Book: Ruse: Lying the American Dream from Hollywood to Wall Street
Excerpt: Narratively: “My High-Flying Life as a Corporate Spy Who Lied His Way to the Top”

After Narratively published this excerpt, it became one of their most popular stories of the year so far, and catapulted Ruse into the top 10 in numerous categories on Amazon. While I’d like to take credit, if it weren’t for the unique approach of editor Brendan Spiegel, I know that wouldn’t have been the case. Brendan’s idea was to excerpt Ruse the way Hollywood makes movie trailers. We never expect to see a full scene or even a significant portion of one in a trailer, right? Instead, we get a series of highlights to entice us to go see the movie. Indeed, when Ruse was first released, an excerpt was printed exactly as it was in a prestigious online magazine, but that excerpt resulted in few sales. Instead, Brendan went with a “Greatest Hits” approach, selecting a series of smaller excerpts from throughout the book that he thought readers would most respond to, then tying them together to give an overall sense of the narrative without giving everything away. Brendan’s “movie trailer” approach was so successful that last week Ruse inked a deal with a major Hollywood production company to develop a TV series inspired by the book. 

Having an outside editor was invaluable, as authors are often too close to their project to really know what sections might best sell their book. Because the first excerpt from Ruse was largely unsuccessful, I was particularly open to Brendan’s suggestions as to what to include. His word count, though, for the initial excerpt was close to 10,000 words. I worried that readers might not buy my book since they would’ve read over a tenth of it for free. Brendan and I worked together (along with Noah Rosenberg who came in toward the end, as well) to edit the excerpt to a more manageable length. We got it down to around 7,500 words and then even created a few new sentences to string the passages together a bit better. That’s right, I wrote new material for an excerpt! Much to my amazement, the resulting excerpt made Ruse seem like a must-read (or a must-make-into-a-TV-series). Of course, it was still the same book I’d written but, by highlighting some of the best parts, the excerpt drove readers to want to know more about my story — which is exactly what an excerpt is supposed to do.