Reusing material in another book?

What are your thoughts on reusing memoir material in another book?

My current project is my husband's memoirs - the book is intended to be a story about his career in the NYPD during the crack epidemic, but it also includes some about his life growing up in the projects and how it affected the way he did his job.

As I'm writing this, though, I'm realizing that there is SO much material about his childhood that it could really be its own book. So now I'm kind of stuck, because there are some episodes and incidents that I think would have to be included in both. But is this done? Is it OK to do? They wouldn't be told in the exact same way, but they would relate some of the same information and material. What do you think?

PinkAmy said:

Do you foresee the same people reading both books?
I think if you rewrite a few incidents, in the context of each book, you'll be ok, but doing so too much will diminish both books.
Something to ponder and I don't mean this in a snarky way--what about your husband's life makes it interesting enough to merit two memoirs? (pretend you're not his wife, but some joe-blow off the street--no pun intended).

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I'm not entirely sure if it does merit two memoirs - I've just been reading all of the material we're gathered and thinking wow, there's really enough that's interesting for two books. His career was fascinating - he worked in Narcotics in the NYPD in the 1980s when the city really was on the brink of losing the drug wars - Law & Order has nothing on some of his stories. I've actually been after him for years to write all of this down, and we've finally started doing it. So I definitely think there's enough about that topic that strangers would want to read provided I can manage to put it together well.

About his childhood, I'm not 100% sure - it's a story about growing up incredibly poor with immigrant parents in the projects of NYC and with an alcoholic abusive father. I'm sure it's been done before - it hasn't been the focus of this project so I haven't done any research into what's already out there - but I still think it's a very compelling story. I've just started thinking lately about whether it was possible and if so, if I could or should reuse certain pieces of it in both.

There might be some overlap, but as you can tell, they'd probably be fairly different types of books, so probably different types of readers.

Steve Collins said:

I was a police officer in London. My last 6 years were special ops I had 2 published autobiographies from it. I broke it down thus, in the first book it covered growing up and joining the police eventually moving into the special ops field, it ended with the taking down of a terrorist with a bomb in central London.

The second book picked up the very next day when after the success of the previous day we took out a gang of robbers taking down an armored car, it covered the last three years of my time with the unit.

For me that natural break was the ideal place to stop and then start again, maybe you could consider something similar leaving the reader at the end of the first book wanting more.

Good Luck.

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Thanks - this is a good idea. I have way more material than I really know what to do with about his career, so I have been trying to figure out what to leave out and what to include. But I'm especially stuck on figuring out how much of his childhood to include or leave out hmm..

I'd also love to read your books And your signature quote is my husband's favorite quote too!