Posted by Kathleen Pooler/@kathypooler with Victoria Noe/@Victoria_Noe
“In our world, divide and conquer must become define and empower.” Audre Lorde
It is my pleasure to welcome Viki Noe back for a guest post on why she decided to turn her nonfiction book about friend grief into a series. Viki and I met in Dan Blank’s Build Your Author Platform Course in 2011 and have been mentoring each other ever since. Viki has recently released her third in a series of books on dealing with the loss of a friend.
Welcome back, Viki!
The Story Behind the Story…
It’s been four years since I embarked on the latest reinvention of my work life. The learning curve – coinciding with explosive change in the publishing world – has been steep and constant. That’s the thing about being a writer these days (self-published or not): you are constantly learning. It might be new technology, new marketing possibilities, new opportunities. But learn you must if you are to be successful in your craft or business.
One of the things I learned was to choose my mentors carefully. Kathy is one. Porter Anderson is another. And so is George Davis. Kathy keeps me grounded and focused on the craft of writing, as well as a constant, gentle reminder of the importance of supportive friends. Porter keeps me informed and occasionally entertained on the business side. And George…well, George is the person responsible for my book becoming a series.
I spent about 18 months shopping my book about people grieving the death of a friend. I went to pitch slams at conferences, researched agencies, sent queries and proposals. Those who were professional enough to respond (about half) gave a variation of the same response: great idea, but they didn’t know how to market it.
One day I opened the email with the latest rejection and said to myself, ‘well, I do.’ That’s when I took Porter’s advice to self-publish. Not long after, I was having lunch at Book Expo with friends, including George. I told him of my decision to self-publish, which he enthusiastically supported. Then he said,
“I’m telling you, this should be a series.”
If memory serves me, it wasn’t the first time he’d made that suggestion. I already knew breaking up the book into a series of small books would not pass an agent’s inspection. But now…now the decision to self-publish made the series possible and quite intriguing.
In the original book proposal, each chapter was a different situation – war, AIDS, 9/11, workplace – where people have to cope with the death of a friend. As George and I talked, he pointed out the obvious: each chapter could be a separate book. And though it has morphed somewhat, his original observation has proven true.
In March of this year, 3-1/2 years after starting my research and writing, I published the first in the Friend Grief series: Friend Grief and Anger: When Your Friend Dies and No One Gives A Damn. Its purpose is to introduce the concept of friend grief, why it’s often disrespected and the anger felt as a result. The following month, Friend Grief and AIDS: Thirty Years of Burying Our Friends came out. Those books, as well as the new one, Friend Grief and 9/11: The Forgotten Mourners, were rooted in personal experience. And although I expand well beyond my own situation, the intensity made them difficult at times to write.
What serializing has done was enable me to expand on topics that deserved far more space than one chapter. The 9/11 book is the longest so far at 14,000 words. I suspect the next one, Friend Grief and Community: Band of Friends, about the military and how grief/survivor guilt contribute to PTSD and suicide, may be longer. The final two books in the series will be about workplace grief (with a very broad definition of workplace) and people who made major life changes brought on by the death of a friend.
Serializing is not for everyone. It’s expensive. When I’m done I will have paid for 6 different covers, 6 rounds of editing, 6 sets of formatting into print and ebooks. When totaled up, it’s probably more than I would’ve paid for one “normal” book. But the marketing is what finally made up my mind. Instead of pitching a book that has one chapter on 9/11 or AIDS or veterans, I have a book about 9/11, a book about AIDS, a book about veterans. That opens up marketing venues that may have been reluctant or even resistant to a single book covering all these topics and more. It has also allowed me to build on my marketing, something I needed to do since I’m in this for the long haul.
Then what? What happens after the sixth book is out? Well, I’m already looking past next spring when that happens. First, I re-write book #1.
That’s the beauty of self-publishing: you have do-overs whenever you like. Second, I’ll re-purpose the series into one book. I’ll probably need another cover design, and will do some judicious editing, but putting them all in one seems like a nice closing of the circle. I’ll release it as an audio book, too.
Finally, I’m working on a memoir I’m helping a friend write, and next year I’ll turn my attention to a full-length book that’s just about men grieving their friends. I promised Porter I’d do that, and I think it’ll contain surprises for a lot of people. It’s certainly opened my eyes. All of that should keep me busy for the next two years or so.
The series? Well, there’s always a chance I could add a seventh book. A topic has been suggested to me by several people, but it depends on whether I think I can do it justice. I touch on it in the fourth book, but it’s a topic that frankly scares me (which may be an indication that I should definitely write about it).
The other advantage to a series is that you build your audience. Few things are as exciting as a reader asking you “what’s next?” And to have those people actually suggesting new titles for the series, well, that’s exciting! That means they’re not just invested in your series, they’re invested in you. Is there a higher compliment?
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Thank you Viki for sharing your publishing journey with us. You show how creative ideas and supportive friends have helped you step out of your comfort zone to find new ways to get your work out there. And thanks to all your hard work over these past few years, when we google “friend grief”, we get a myriad of resources from you about dealing with the loss of a friend rather than information about dealing with the loss of pet which occurred before you came on the scene. Congratulations on your very worthy mission!
Author Bio:
Victoria Noe has been a writer most of her life, but didn’t admit it until 2009. After earning a Masters from the University of Iowa in Speech & Dramatic Art, she moved to Chicago, where she worked professionally as a stage manager, director and administrator, as well as a founding board member of the League of Chicago Theatres. Her next career was as a professional fundraiser, raising money for arts, educational and AIDS service organizations. After a concussion ended a successful sales career, she switched gears to keep a promise to a friend to write a book. Her freelance articles have appeared in Chicago Tribune and Windy City Times. She also reviews books on BroadwayWorld.com. Victoria lives in Chicago with her family.
Viki can be reached on :
Facebook: Friendgrief Victoria Noe
Website: Friend Grief blog
How about you? Have you thought of serializing your book?
Viki has generously offered to give each of her books to three separate commenters whose names will be selected at random.
We’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~
Next Week:
Monday, 9/30: Memoir Author Shirley Showalter will discuss “How a Chance Encounter Sealed My Reason for Writing Blush,a Real Life Plain Story in conjunction with her book launch. She will give away a free copy of her memoir to a commenter whose name will be selected in a random drawing.
Friday, 10/4: In preparation for National Life Writing Month in November, Memoir Author and Teacher Denis Ledoux of The Memoir Network will present a series of memoir writing tips-action, character, theme and setting -for all the Fridays in October.
10/4: “Memoirs Need to be Action-Driven”