MySpace, MySpace, MySpace! As if its mega-influence on society isn’t already growing at a whipcrackin’ pace, memoirists have now jumped on the bandwagon, and are using contests to entice their fellow writers to join their cult… er, MySpace group.

PW Daily reported that “The Memoirists Collective, which was recently launched by four newly-published memoirists who met each other on the networking site, began as a forum for writers working within the genre…[and is a] way for these authors to meet new readers and talk about their trade.” The contest’s winner gets their memoir manuscript read by the editors of the published authors, who include Josh Kilmer-Purcell (I Am Not Myself These Days, HarperCollins), Maria Dahvana Headley (The Year of Yes, Hyperion), and Hillary Carlip (Queen of the Oddballs, HarperCollins). They plan to tour together when their books come out in paperback. The tour will be called (gulp) “Scrawlapalooza.”

But the MySpace memoir group isn’t all about sharing feelings and contests; in the end, even these touchy-feely writers are all about the Benjamins — they plan “to use the collective to more aggressively promote their own books in the future.”

Related links:
Read the Publisher’s Weekly Daily story here
Check out MySpace’s Memoirists Collective