December 11, 2024 • 42 mins
What if your personal story could serve as a beacon of hope for countless others navigating similar struggles? Join us for an enlightening conversation with Brooke Seam, a dynamic author, speaker, and chef, who courageously shares her journey through antidepressant withdrawal in her memoir, "May Cause Side Effects." Brooke's story is not just a personal narrative; it's a resource for patients, caregivers, and medical professionals, demystifying the challenging withdrawal process and offering a firsthand account of resilience and healing.
Brooke Seam takes us through the labyrinthine process of writing her memoir, unveiling the serendipitous yet arduous journey of finding the right literary agent and the unique challenges of publishing during a pandemic. The episode highlights Brooke's fortuitous encounter at a writing retreat that led to securing her agent, Beth, and emphasizes the importance of writing from a healed perspective. Brooke also shares the transformative decision to write in the first-person present tense, a choice that brought authenticity and immediacy to her narrative, making her story not only compelling but deeply relatable to a wide audience.
Navigating the complexities of memoir marketing, Brooke Seam offers invaluable insights into the nuances of launching a nonfiction book. She reveals the strategic elements behind successful book promotions and the often overlooked importance of early marketing efforts. Drawing from her rich professional background as a chef and advocate, Brooke discusses how her culinary career intersects with her advocacy work in mental health, illustrating a unique blend of personal and professional experiences. Closing with advice for aspiring memoir writers, Brooke encourages understanding one's motivations, whether writing for personal fulfillment or a cause-driven purpose, inspiring listeners to pen their truths with clarity and purpose.
Watch the free training: https://selfpublishing.com/freetraining
Schedule a no-cost call with our team: https://selfpublishing.com/schedule
Here are some links that might come in handy:
- Apply for a free book consultation
- Register for our free on-demand training
Must-watch episodes:
- SPS 044: Using A Free + Shipping Book Funnel with Anik Singal
- SPS 115: Using Atomic Habits To Write & Publish A Book with James Clear
- SPS 127: Traditional vs. Self Publishing: Which You Should Choose with Ruth Soukup
- SPS 095: The Five Love Languages: Selling 15 Million Copies with Gary Chapman
- SPS 056: How I Sold 46M Copies of My Self Published Book with Robert Kiyosaki
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, chandler Bolt.
Here Joining me today is BrookeSeam.
I'm going to try to list allthese things but I'm going to be
quick.
She's the author of multiplebooks.
It really kind of decoratedinteresting, diverse bio.
So author of multiple books.
Her most recent book may callside effects.
(00:28):
Ben Mark will talk about thaton the episode today.
She also is a coauthor on abook called Prohibition Bakery a
bacon cookbook.
So she got kind of multiplepublishing experiences.
She's a speaker.
She has created multiplebusinesses.
She travels around the worldspeaking on her experience after
being six years off,antidepressants getting
(00:49):
prescribed in her teenage yearsReally interesting story and is
a chef specializing in custommeal planning for pro athletes.
I got a lot of questions.
There are a lot of stuff.
I figure today we'll talk a lotabout the memoir writing
process.
I think that's what a lot offolks listening or watching is
going to be interested in.
(01:09):
How do you take life experience, create a compelling memoir and
then use that to really createa brand speak, like all the
things that you've done, brooke,and so I think it's going to be
really interesting.
Brooke, welcome, great to haveyou here.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Thanks, chandler.
You've just explained why I'meffectively categorically
unhirable Companies.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
I tell you what I've been called a lot worse, oh man.
Well, hey, let's start here.
Why did you decide to write abook about your life experience
and what seems like?
I haven't read the book yet,but it seems like some pretty
tough life.
Read the book yet, but it seemslike some pretty tough life
experiences, which is oftenurges people to write a book.
But then often people are like,wow, am I really going to write
(01:52):
about this?
How did you decide to do that?
How did you see it fitting inwith, kind of, your brand, your
business, what you're doing?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
I mean, one of the fallacies about memoir is that
typically, if you're writingabout your whole life experience
, if you're 30, how old was I?
31 when I started writing ityou haven't really lived enough
to rationalize a memoir.
But the exception to that ruleis if you have a very specific
life experience that couldsomehow speak to a wide group of
(02:19):
people, which was the case forme.
My book May Cause Side Effectsreally only spans about one year
in time and so the other restof my life is categorically
irrelevant for this book.
But I was medicated when I was15.
I was put on a cocktail ofantidepressants and then a bunch
of other drugs to counter theside effects of those
antidepressants.
When I was 15, after my fatherdied and I didn't question
(02:43):
anything there, nobody did and Ispent the next 15 years on that
cocktail of drugs.
But basically I wasn't better,if anything, I was worse, and it
took a long time.
But it started to dawn on methat I shouldn't be depressed
and suicidal if I was takingantidepressants that were
working.
And that thought and the factthat I got this weird
(03:06):
opportunity to travel the worldfor a year pushed me to go see a
psychiatrist and I told herwhat the deal was and she pulled
me off one of my drugs, coldturkey, which was incredibly
irresponsible and it led tosevere antidepressant withdrawal
.
I was on the lowest dose of onedrug on the market, so that's
why she pulled me off coldturkey.
(03:26):
That's an important caveat.
So she thought she was doingthe right thing, but my story
ended up being more or less likeI was on the lowest dose of one
of these drugs and also I had ayear going into two years of
antidepressant withdrawal sohorrific I got a book deal out
of it.
That tells you something.
(03:50):
So that's what my memoir isabout.
It is about the experience ofgoing through antidepressant
withdrawal, working through it.
It is designed for patients,caregivers and doctors.
It's written from a veryspecific perspective that allows
you to be right in the story asit's happening.
So it gives an idea of whatantidepressant withdrawal is
like, to the extent that you can.
It's not a pop science book.
(04:10):
It's not filled with data.
It's not about that.
The idea was that if someonewas going through it or you were
caring or treating someone whowas going through it, you would
be able to better recognize thisthrough my work and stop
misdiagnosing people, which isreally common, and also to just
have a fuller idea of what thissyndrome is like, because it is
(04:32):
something that affects a hugepercentage of people, that is
kind of a silent epidemic inthis country and all over the
world.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
That's good.
I like that, and I think alesson for folks watching or
listening is zooming intospecific parts of your life
experience, because unlessyou're famous, a celebrity et
cetera, if you go, some peoplewant to write a memoir.
It's like who cares?
Yeah, how can you make itspecific and helpful for people?
And so I love that you did that, and so kind of to your point,
(05:03):
even at 31,.
Hey, I can write about my lifestory in a way that's going to
be helpful and meaningful forpeople.
Where did you had you alreadybeen speaking about that prior
to the book?
Was the book kind of the firstway where you said, hey, I'm
going to start talking aboutthis?
What did that look like?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
When I first started writing the book, I had the
naive assumption, based on myexperience with the Prohibition
Bakery book, because I am a chefby trade.
So I had been through atraditional publisher before.
It was a bigger publisher and,quite frankly, the process was
very easy.
Someone came to us and was likewe want to publish your book
and we said okay and then a bookhappened.
There was no strife about it,it wasn't a horrible- Very
unusual.
(05:48):
Yes, we didn't make crap tons ofmoney off of it, but it was
just such an easy door to walkthrough.
We didn't have to deal withtrying to pitch to multiple
agents or publishers or any ofthat.
An agent showed up and thenshe's like here you go and we
were done.
I naively thought with mymemoir that it would be more or
less the same process, that allI had to do was have an
(06:08):
interesting story and write adecent proposal or something,
and that it would just be easy.
It wasn't.
There was a lot that happened.
I ended up firing my agent, wekilled the deal and then four
years passed between findinganother agent and getting
another deal.
So it was quite dramatic.
(06:29):
But as I was writing it and Iknew that it would probably come
out eventually, combined withthe fact that I started to see
the cultural temperature aroundthis topic change, I knew that
someone was going to tell thisstory it may as well be me and
so I started quietly speaking onit.
I literally had a couple smallpublic speaking opportunities,
(06:50):
kind of slam poet type things,where you just stand up in a bar
and tell your story.
That was pretty terrifying,even though there were only 15
people in the room.
And then I wrote a couple ofarticles for major media outlets
and it was just kind of like aslow creep into it where I was
testing the waters to see howcomfortable I felt about talking
about the topic, what thefeedback would be like because
(07:12):
it's kind of controversial,which is stupid, but it is so I
didn't know how comfortable Iwas going to feel, kind of going
into the line of fire.
But then once the book came outand it actually went global and
really nothing bad has happened.
Now I'm just kind of like tookall the, took all the shackles
off and I'm just going forwardand saying what I think is right
(07:34):
about this and dealing with theblowback one way or another.
But it's actually not that badbecause I think people are
really starting to wake up tothe idea that what we're doing
isn't working very well.
So maybe we do need to betalking about this.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah, I love that and completely agree.
So you had an agent.
You said it sounds like had adeal.
That deal kind of blew up.
You decided to fire him.
Then shopped it around, foundanother.
What's the backstory around allthat?
Did you at any point in thatconsider self-publishing?
How did you make your back,your way back to what?
(08:08):
Sounds like a deal, Like whatdid that look like?
Speaker 2 (08:11):
I did not consider self-publishing at any point
during this process for a veryspecific reason, and that's just
because I am not a researcheror a PhD on this topic.
So I knew that if this wasgoing to be taken seriously, it
needed to have the backing of alegitimate traditional publisher
.
That has proved to be a very,very smart decision.
Now it's fine, right, I'mestablished as a recognized
(08:46):
expert or whatever you want tocall it, in this industry.
So it's like actually would beeasier for me to self-publish a
book now than it would have beenwhen it came out.
But the earlier process I mean,I'm still kind of almost
embarrassed about this, but I'mgoing to share it because
hopefully somebody else won'thave to go through it.
But I had had an agent who wasleft over from a different time
in my life and she had gotten adeal with what I now know is a
(09:13):
hybrid slash vanity press.
But I didn't really understandthat at the time.
It was right when those thingswere kind of new, so they were
still kind of billing themselvesas oh, we'll take half the.
You know, we're going to giveyou 50% payout on the royalties,
and it sounded like such a gooddeal.
And you know, then I didn'thave to pay out the advance.
I mean, there were all thesethings that seemed really good
(09:35):
about it, and I know that thereare a couple more reputable
hybrid publishers out there.
Now this was not one of themand those ones did not exist at
this time.
So this one ended up reallybeing more vanity and borderline
predatory.
And I knew that that was thecase because I got sent a galley
(09:56):
of another book that thesepeople were publishing and their
editor dropped the ball, whichwas Red Flag no 1.
And so they wanted me to justlook it over and see if I could
point out any typos.
Red flag number two.
And I looked at it andliterally there was a major typo
in the dedication on the firstpage and I was like this is not
a good sign.
And then I kept reading throughit.
(10:16):
I got about 25 pages in andthere were so many errors and
this book was like pulled fromgoing into production.
So there were so many errors.
And this, this book, was likepulled from going into
production, so there were somany errors in 25 pages.
I lost count and I was like noone here is doing a quality
control check or job, so I justrealized that there had been a
bit of a dupe, dupe that hadhappened and that somehow this
(10:36):
crappy agent was in collusionwith them and they were just
kind of trying to make money.
And again it this all kind ofhappened.
This all came around from theback end and surprised me.
It actually started off legitand it took the turn of
predatory halfway through theprocess, which is why I didn't
see what was going on and in theend I fired everyone.
(11:01):
And then this agent ended upfleeing the state in her
Winnebago with her two dogs.
There are multiple of herauthors that she stole a bunch
of royalties from, including me,and that has been just an
ongoing weird twist from this.
Wow, Over the course of likethe past seven, eight years
where I'm just like well, youknow, this is how we learn.
(11:22):
I guess it's a good thing.
I didn't lose a significantamount of money, but there are a
lot of bad actors in this space.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Agreed, agreed, and I appreciate you sharing that for
exactly that right reason, orfor exactly that reason right,
because there's a lot of peopleout there that may not know that
exists and you probably justsave some people some time.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Can I give people one really important piece of
advice that I've learned fromthis story?
I'd love that when you have anagent and royalties are involved
, always make sure the publisheris cutting separate checks for
you and your agent, based onwhatever the percentage cut is.
The problem was is that Ididn't know that at the time and
I didn't know my agent waspredatory and so the publishing
(12:04):
company set her all theroyalties directly and then it
was in our agreement that shewould then cut checks to me.
Uh, and she didn't do that andI also had no clue.
Like she was, like she was theone who was getting all the
reports about how many bookswe'd sold and how much money we
were supposed to be making.
So I never saw any of of thatand when I stopped receiving
(12:25):
communication around it, I justassumed the book had stopped
selling, when in reality thechecks were just being sent to
someone who was taking them.
So when I have my agent now hername's Beth Davey, I love her
so much, we talked about this inthe very beginning and she was
like, yeah, I never touch moneyfrom my clients.
Like we, the publisher willsend the 15% cut or whatever it
(12:49):
is to her.
I get the rest Two separatechecks.
That's got to be part of it,and if it's not, that should be
a giant red flag to run far away.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Yeah, that's a really great lesson.
I mean it's more an integrityand it's just easier.
This is, I mean you think aboutit.
It's like if I'm an agent, Idon't want to have to deal with
cutting people checks, I justwant to get my check and my
authors get their check.
That makes a lot of sense.
So how did you find Beth?
And then what, what changed andwhat's worked well, kind of in
(13:20):
the agent relationship with her,and then, and then her helping
you with the book well, well,beth is just wonderful and
distinctly not a criminal, sothat's that made the
relationships much better.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Uh, just starting there.
But I actually found herbecause I had gone through some
writing retreats with LauraMunson, who's a New York Times
bestselling author and runs justthe most soul-affirming writing
retreat out of Montana.
I mean, it's the kind of placewhere I showed up there and for
(13:54):
five days I just thought this iswhat life should be like for
artists.
It was beautiful, and she madethe introduction to Beth because
at that point I had been deepenough into my memoir writing
that I had some real meat toshow, and so I spent.
I went to Laura's retreat.
I kind of got the direction Ineeded to go.
(14:15):
I spent about three months.
I just rented an apartment inSeattle, basically holed up like
a monk for three months, wroteout a draft that was finally
strong and ultimately that'swhat got me to deal with Beth,
and then Beth went out to sellthe book in April of 2020, which
was poor.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Which was what you said.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Which was poor because that was roughly three
weeks into the pandemic.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Oh, I see.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
That was not a time to try and sell a book about
psychiatric drug withdrawal whenprescriptions were being given
out at record rates.
So it's kind of been.
It's been clunky from start tofinish, but still got there.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Well, it's landed in a great spot, obviously.
So I guess what was the bigbreakthrough where you got the
deal and then got it published?
Speaker 2 (15:06):
You know, there wasn't really a big, big
breakthrough.
It was actually kind of I hadstarted to transition to the
mental state of like this justisn't going to happen, because
the I don't think this wouldhave been the case had the
timing not been what it was withthe pandemic.
But the book kept getting sentto editors and we would get this
great feedback from the editorsand then they would pass it
(15:27):
along and it kept getting killedin marketing or by legal, and
that literally probably happeneda dozen times.
I mean, it was so frustratingand so I, you know there are a
lot of threads I can pull atthat to try and explain why.
but my, you know, my, the big, Ithink the big thing is that at
(15:49):
the end of the day, it's bigpublishing houses don't really
want to rock the boat, you knowand they don't want to be liable
for exactly so I just kind ofthought this isn't going to
happen and I I really had tomake you know, come to terms
with the fact that this bookjust might sit in a drawer and
never get read and kind of likethings happen in life.
(16:12):
Once I really got comfortablein that place.
This isn't happening.
That's when the deal camethrough so let's want to.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
I want to fast forward to memoir marketing and
kind of how this fits in withyour brand and all that stuff
here in just a second.
But I want to maybe firstbacktrack into the writing piece
.
You mentioned the writingretreat and then, and then
locking yourself in yourapartment in Seattle and that
sort of thing.
Can you talk about how hard oreasy it was to write about this
experience?
And especially because we hearthis all the time from our
(16:42):
authors, writing a memoir cankind of be this cathartic
experience.
It's like free therapy reallydifficult.
You don't know how much of itdo you share, how much do you
not, and even just the writingprocess can be pretty difficult.
So can you talk about what wasyour experience?
Was that your experience, wasit not?
What did that kind of look like?
Speaker 2 (17:01):
You know I hear that from memoirists all the time and
I don't identify with that atall.
Like to me, from an experiencestandpoint, there wasn't
anything difficult about it inthe sense that, like I had done
so much work on the healing, Iwasn't writing from the wound
anymore.
I was writing from the scar.
I was writing from theperspective of how do I make
(17:22):
this story effective for thereader, which I really think is
the healthiest, because you'rewriting about a subjective thing
that happened to you.
But you have to be objective inthe way you put it on the page,
because it's not about you,it's about how it's going to
(17:46):
land.
So the tricky part for me wasmostly finding the correct tone
and voice, because theexperience is really, really
intense and I love books, I lovereading.
I spent a huge chunk of mywriting time reading.
I wasn't actually writing mybook, I was reading, I was
(18:09):
studying people whose works Iadmired and trying to figure out
okay, how did they create thisnarrative arc?
What about their voice?
Sounds resonant to me, whatdoesn't?
And most memoirs written infirst person past it's like it's
in past tense there tends to be.
The memoirists I really likeare beautiful writers.
(18:33):
There's poetry in theirlanguage.
There's imagery, it's beautiful.
And every time I tried to writelike that in my story it sucked
.
Every single time it just likeI went into this weird wise
narrator place and it justsucked and I couldn't figure it
out because I knew technically,I knew how to write, but I'm
(18:57):
like, and I also knew thedifference between this sucks
and am I insecure about mywriting and I just need like it
doesn't suck, but I'm not sureLike I knew the difference.
So I knew it sucked.
And so that's when, uh, that'swhen Laura was really such a
(19:18):
huge help for me because she wasreading my work and she was
like, okay, I need you to go,like go write something in first
person present.
And I was like that's weird,I've never read a book in first,
like a memoir, in first personpresent tense.
And she's just like just trustme, just do it as an exercise.
And I said okay, and again wewere in Montana, it was
beautiful.
So I take this March snowy, takemy laptop and I put on all my
(19:40):
clothes and I kind of trudgedout to this little gazebo in the
middle of this beautiful horsefarm in Montana and I just sat
there freezing and I can'tremember if I rewrote a scene
that was already written or if Iwrote something new.
I think it was almost entirelynew and it was about 1500 words.
It was all in first-personpresent.
(20:00):
I solved a huge problem in thenarrative, which was I was
trying to give the backstorywithout spending too much time
on the backstory, because if youlook at most memoirs, you're in
the thick of whatever's goingon within the first 10 pages,
but that might require you togive 30 years of backstory.
How do you do that?
Right, but somehow, switchinginto first person present, I
started working back throughtime over this 1500 words and I
(20:24):
was like, basically, thishappened, this happened, this
happened.
And this happened in thiscompletely different tone than
I've ever written in.
And it came out of me and I waslike, oh shit, this is good.
And then I was like but is it?
And then I read it to Laura andshe was like wrote you, wrote
that today?
And I said uh-huh, and she wasjust kind of like that is the
direction we go.
So when I realized that not Ihad the power in my voice in
(20:48):
first person present, everythingbecame so much easier for me to
write.
Good lord, put on dndd andfailed.
Um.
So anyway, when I, when Irealized that I had power in my
voice in first person present,that the whole narrative opened
up.
I'm not going to say it waseasy for me to write still, but
it was very easy for me to justbe like how did I feel in that
(21:11):
moment?
And basically write on the pageI am furious, and then whatever
would come would come, and sojust it allowed me a way in.
And then, because it was a bookabout the psychological turmoil
of antidepressant withdrawal,it allowed me to be nonsensical.
I could be emotional.
(21:31):
I could not make any quoteunquote sense because I was
having an experience that didn'tmake sense.
And I couldn't do that in pasttense because in past tense it
still has to make sense in a wayIn first person present.
It doesn't.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Interesting.
Wow, that's fascinating.
I think there's a few things Iwant to just highlight here that
were really good.
That you said One is writingfrom the wound versus writing
from the scar.
I think that's a reallyinteresting distinction that
will be very helpful for a lotof our authors and you just have
a high level of self-awareness,which I think probably helped
(22:06):
navigate this.
And you talked about kind ofgoing through therapy and stuff
prior to that which is helpfulto process, so that then you
have clarity when you'reactually writing.
I also liked you said thememoir is not about you, it's
about how it's going to land andreally how it's going to help
the reader Really importantthing for people to think about.
And then, lastly, I think youknow we have a memoir program
(22:29):
and a nonfiction program and afiction program and stuff like
that is that our memoir trainingvery much, much more closely
resembles our fiction trainingBecause you're writing a story
that's engaging.
It just happens to be thatyou're the main character,
versus a lot of nonfictionwriting is very kind of bland,
(22:52):
direct, etc.
It sounds like that's kind ofwas your experience as well.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Yeah, I mean, there's so many parallels between
memoir and fiction.
Even the way they sell issimilar.
A nonfiction book and let's sayit's a pop science book or some
historical thing.
You sell it based on proposal.
So your job is to write adetailed proposal, basically an
outline of what's going to be inthis book, and then you take it
to your agent, who takes it tothe publisher and they look at
(23:19):
it and they say, yes, this makessense or no, it doesn't, or
whatever, and you move on.
But there's not nearly as muchscrutiny of the voice, of that
(23:39):
kind of writing, just writingvoice.
But you as a person has to comethrough the page and so if it
sounded a memoir unless, again,you're a celebrity or someone
(24:03):
who just has such a presencethat they feel like they can
sell it, no matter what thewriting's like you have to
basically have a full manuscriptand that's what they judge it
on, and so you really do have tothink of it more like fiction.
And then you have to become ahuge editor of your own story
(24:26):
and I guess in a way where itcan sort of maybe be therapeutic
for some people, as if it helpsyou untangle the stories you
tell yourself about whathappened.
Then I could see how that wouldhelp people.
But for me, I felt like I'dalready done that and it was
very clear to me that my bookwas about the year I spent in
(24:48):
antidepressant withdrawal andabsolutely nothing else.
To the point where I opened thebook and the preface saying you
don't need to know why we'rehere, it is irrelevant.
All the shit that happened inmy life that contributed to my
feelings of depression, it iscompletely irrelevant to this
story.
I did that strategically.
One it really was irrelevant.
(25:09):
The book was aboutantidepressant withdrawal.
It wasn't about the years ofdepression leading up to it.
Two, this is a topic wherepeople can get into the
suffering Olympics very quickly,and so it felt useless to me to
basically create a story that'slike oh, woe is me, you know,
feel sorry for me Like I was,this is why I'm sick and needed
(25:32):
this or whatever.
That would just open people upto comparison.
Right, and that wasn't thepoint, because whether or not
you were put on antidepressantsas a kid like I was or whether
or not you were put on thembecause there was an event in
your life, whether or not youhad no event in your life and
you were just felt sad, or ifyou lost a child, or you were
put on because of menopause.
(25:52):
None of those reasons matter.
When it comes to getting off ofthese drugs, everyone's in the
same boat, and that is a rockyboat with zero research.
So that is what the book neededto focus on, and when I started
stripping things away about myown personal reasons for it and
trying to justify it, it gotmuch easier to write because it
became clear what my North Starwas.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
That's good and a really good observation.
Hard to do too, because as ahuman you're like hey, but I'm
interesting and my lifeexperience is interesting.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Yeah, but you're not and it's not.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
All right, you said it, not me.
Hey, I want to talk marketing abit, because I think this is
kind of a black box for a lot ofpeople is how do you market a
memoir and what does that looklike?
So how did you do it?
And then, especially, how didthis, uh, help build or relate
to your personal brand, speakingthat you're doing all that kind
(26:47):
of thing okay.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Well, chandler, again , this is a story not of what
way, right, but of what wentwrong.
So learn from me, okay.
So the thing there there'smultiple Marketing is such a big
term, right?
Such a big word.
I think there are multiplestrategies.
But when you have a memoir thatyou know I know my book was
(27:13):
technically strong enough tocompete with the best-selling
memoirs on the market.
I know it was technicallystrong enough and I think if it
was more available in the world,more well-known, it would keep
selling and it would make a shitton of money selling and it
(27:36):
would make a shit ton of money.
But there is quite a hump toget to that point, because books
, especially memoirs that arevery well known in the world,
didn't happen by accident.
It wasn't just that peoplehappened to find it and it took
off.
No, it was a coordinated effortstarting about a year before,
with the publishing companiesand podcast tours, speaking
tours with the publishingcompanies and podcast tours,
(27:57):
speaking tours, magazine tours,getting picked for Oprah or
Reese Witherspoon's book club.
That seems like, oh, they justpicked it a week ago.
They didn't, they picked it ayear ago and everyone has been
prepping for that book to be thebook in that particular
category.
So if you don't slot into thatspace right away?
Particular category so if youdon't slot into that space right
away, I mean, yeah, there are ahandful of rare books that can
(28:17):
really take off.
The Martian, comes to mind,started off as a self-publishing
book that took off.
And Andy Weir we eventuallymade it to be within traditional
publishing houses, but for mostpeople that's not what happens.
So then you pay out of pocketfor PR people.
You hope your publisher doessomething, or if you don't have
(28:37):
a publisher, you figure out howto do something yourself.
But I am a little biased onthis in a negative way, because
none of that went well for us.
It was very little fruit wasbared, given the amount of money
was spent on PR.
I think there was a lot of trainwrecks that happened.
I watched it all happen and waspowerless to do it.
But a big thing was nobodystarted early enough.
(29:00):
I got my book deal in July of2021.
The book came out in September.
I was trying to get people onboard to do what they needed to
do at least six months ahead oftime, but everyone just said, oh
, we're going to start August1st and I knew that that wasn't
going to work.
I knew it wasn't going to, butI was powerless at that point
because I had given away thepower.
And that is what happens whenyou go down traditional
(29:22):
publishing routes is you do giveaway a lot of the power and I
didn't have $25,000 sitting inmy bank account that I was going
to go hire people out of pocketmyself.
So I kind of had to just dealwith that and it did not.
It did not go well and I thinkthere was a huge missed
opportunity.
But as far as the stuff I didmyself, when I, when I
(29:42):
recognized that that train wasnot really going to leave the
station, I, you know, I got somepieces placed in traditional
media in traditional media NewYork Post, business Insider, god
, what else?
Washington Examiner hadsomething in the Washington Post
.
Those kind of op-ed things youdo.
Nice, they help a little bit,but they don't help that much.
(30:10):
I mean, for example, I had abig op-ed in the New York Post
that was both print and onlinewithin a week of my book coming
out.
If you look at the Amazon data,it only sold 300 books.
It's not.
I think doing that stuff isworth it, but don't expect it to
launch you to a bestseller.
That's going to require a lotmore strategy.
So for me, when I kind ofrealized, okay, we weren't going
(30:32):
to have a book that was goingto hit the bestseller list
within, you know, a few monthsafter launching, and then when
it became clear that this maynever hit a bestseller list and
that that doesn't mean the bookisn't worth reading by any means
most books aren't on bestsellerlists I just realized that, you
know, I had strategicallywritten the book to be a
perennial seller from thebeginning.
(30:53):
There's no dates in the book.
There's literally not a singledate other than the last day I
wrote it.
I didn't want anyone to knowwhat period of time this was
taking place in, so it wouldcontinue to be relevant over
time.
So I've just taken the strategyof this is a perennial selling
book.
It's going to be evergreen,it's going to keep selling.
So all I have to do is keeptalking about it and it will
keep selling, and there could besome sort of cultural spark
(31:19):
that lights an absolute fire andsuddenly the book blows up.
But maybe not, odds areprobably no.
But it's still consistentlyselling copies and I'm
consistently getting feedback onit from readers and I'm still
doing feedback on it fromreaders and I'm still doing
podcasts and speaking and stuff.
So it will continue to chugalong.
But I think defining whatyou're Redefining, what success
(31:43):
means to you, is a requirementin this process.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
That's a big one.
It's a really big one and Ilove we call Essentially what
you're doing, we call it theone-year launch, right when it's
just hey, I'm just going tokeep talking about this for a
year.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Yeah, I'm on a two-year launch now.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Instead of a week, which is how most people, the
two big mistakes they make,which you alluded to, are they
focus only on launch week.
And then they focus only on thebestseller list and you can hit
(32:18):
the bestseller list and have agood launch week and have a book
that doesn't do much at allbecause you had a good week and
so building that long-termmomentum in it, which obviously
you're doing.
Let's maybe last piece, andthen we can wrap up, is how have
you bridged this into yourbusiness and where has this
showed up for speaking gigs andfor anything else that you're
doing?
How has it helped there?
Speaker 2 (32:29):
That's a good question, and it's been a big
struggle because, as we alludedto my extremely confusing bio at
the beginning, so I've spent myentire career paid career, if
you will as a professional chef.
So I went to culinary school,worked in fancy kitchens, owned
a bakery in Manhattan which iswhen the start of my book begins
(32:50):
is when I was working in mybakery, I competed on the show
Chopped.
I was in withdrawal while I wason Chopped and then I sort of
got rid of that whole aspect ofmy life and started healing from
this process.
But I've never left theculinary industry because you
get to a point where, well,that's what I do and that's what
(33:10):
people pay me to do.
So, since I'm categoricallyunhirable, I need to keep doing
that in order to pay my bills.
So I've actually transitioned.
Now I work with pro athletes andwhat's fascinating and it's
only in the past couple of yearsI've been able to bridge
everything together is that youknow, I understand how the food
system works.
I understand how thepharmaceutical system works and
the mental health system works,and really, if you want to pull
(33:39):
back the curtain on those things, you just swap the words
pharmaceutical for ultraprocessed foods and big pharma
for big food and so on and soforth.
It's the same playbook.
And not only that, they reallyfeed into each other.
So in my work in advocacyaround withdrawal, I have a lot
of people whose bodies arecompletely wrecked Mine was
completely wrecked coming off ofthese drugs and I've had to use
food and my understanding ofhow food is medicine or a drug
(34:01):
to heal and and that when I whenI compare it directly to how I
work with my pro athletes, likewhether or not they're in the
mlb or the nfl, I'm actuallyfeeding them in an identical way
as I would feed someone whomore or less who's coming out of
you know severe antidepressantwithdrawal and trying to heal.
Because, as it turns out, thefoods that are actually really
(34:23):
help us heal are kind of thesame and limited, and you know
they're not in a package and youknow they're recognizable as a
whole food and then everythingelse is just the noise, and so
in the past few years I'veactually really been able to
bridge these two things together.
Now, from a marketingstandpoint, that that is really
(34:45):
great for people who want tolisten, you know, and who
actually can think of this stuff.
On a little bit of a higherlevel topic.
Instagram hates it because I'mcompeting with two completely
different algorithms and so if Itry and talk about my food work
on Instagram when I'm talkingabout my book work, most of the
time it just dies and the wholealgorithm gets confused.
(35:08):
So I've recently decided, okay,we need to separate this stuff.
And so my primary Instagram iscompletely about just withdrawal
, advocacy work.
And then I have a chefInstagram that's a little bit
more about like this is how I'm,you know, this is how I'm
cooking for my NFL players thisweek or whatever, but and so
that that helps social media.
But I do.
(35:30):
I do all the time wonder howthey interact with each other,
and I don't know if negative isreally the way to put it, but
because withdrawal and mentalhealth can be so polarizing, it
does make me nervous to talkabout it so publicly and then
try and go market myself as achef and try and get clients.
If I happen to run into aclient or an employer who
(35:52):
doesn't want to rock the boat,they might not want to be
associated with me, you know,and I sort of just had to accept
that as a consequence of thesituation and basically, like
you know the right people aregoing to come to me and the
wrong ones won't, and but it's alittle scary.
It's very scary to be so publicabout something so that's so
vulnerable and just still existin a world that's not totally
(36:15):
around that like.
I don't make any money reallyoff of my advocacy work, so it's
basically like my shootingmyself in the foot from a career
standpoint by doing this, butit's to me it's far more
important than agreed.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
The cooking stuff when I think I'm on long enough
timeline.
It it's a big magnet.
It repels the people whowouldn't like you or want to
work with you anyway, or viceversa that you wouldn't want to
work with, and it attracts thepeople who would and resonate
with that, which I think is asuper smart move.
I'll ask this last question, ortwo, brooke question one would
(36:51):
be what would your advice bewhat you know now to someone
who's listening?
Last question or two, brookeQuestion one would be what would
your advice be, knowing whatyou know now, to someone who's
listening to this, thinkingabout writing a memoir?
Speaker 2 (37:08):
knowing what you know .
Now I think, as anyone who hasany desire to write a memoir
should give it a shot, and alsothere's no shame in saying that
was a good idea, but maybe we'renot going to fully go through
with it.
Like I do really something, I'mtrying to discourage anyone.
It's just that like you have toknow why you're doing it.
If you're writing a book for apurpose you're writing a cause
(37:29):
based book then you have towrite a cause based book.
You can't, and you have to takeall the crap that comes with
that.
If you want to write a memoirbecause you want to put your
story out into the world and youwant to self-publish it and
you're doing it for you, thenwrite that book.
But try not to get the twoconfused.
(37:49):
I get really frustrated withthat sometimes just because it's
like get the two confused.
I get really frustrated withthat sometimes just because it's
like like we've said.
I mean, it's kind of like whensomeone's trying to explain your
dreams, like most people don'twant to hear about other
people's dreams, like it's justnot that interesting.
Or drug trips, whatever.
It is Right, it's just not thatinteresting to anyone except
for you, and I'm not trying tosay that my work is like, so
(38:12):
interesting everyone should readit.
I'm actually the opposite thatmost of my life is completely
not worth putting on paper andexpecting other people to be
interested in it, right?
So just get clear on that.
And the sooner you can getclear on that, the easier the
process is going to be.
Because, again, this iscompletely about managing
expectations.
And if your expectation is thatyou're writing, if you're
(38:34):
making art for the sake ofmaking art, like I love, that
right, I love.
Kurt Vonnegut said make bad artbecause it's like what makes
for better people.
I make bad art all the time.
It's the primary thing I do inmy life is make bad art that
nobody ever sees or that only ahandful of people see, because
it brings me joy.
But that does not mean Idecided that that's how I'm
(38:54):
going to make my money and gointo this whole career off of
that.
Now, if you're doing acause-based book, there are more
options for career and for itto be something that really
becomes a big thing in your life.
But it's tricky, it's difficultand I make $1.06 for every book
I sell.
So just manage yourexpectations there.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
Yeah, it's good, Brooke, this has been awesome.
Where can people go to find outmore about you?
Speaker 2 (39:26):
to buy your book, all that good stuff.
You can find me all over theinternet at Brooke Seam.
So that's B-R-O-O-K-E-S-I-E-M,although my chef Instagram is at
Chef Brooke Seam and I have anewsletter called Happiness is a
skill.
That's brook seam at sub stackdot com.
So we talk.
I get a lot more in the weedsabout antidepressant withdrawal
and health and recovery therethan I do on social media.
And uh, what was the otherquestion?
Speaker 1 (39:47):
the book it's called.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Oh, the book, yes you can find may cause side effects
.
Wherever fine books are sold.
So it's all over Amazon, barnes, noble, wherever you can get it
in other countries, but it'snot quite as easy there.
I'm kind of working ontranslations, we'll see how that
goes, and it's on audiobook etcetera.
It's wherever you get books.
(40:09):
You can find my book.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Love it Guys, check it out.
May cause side effects.
Brooke, thank you.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Thank you so much, Chandler.
Hey, chandler Bolt.
Here Joining me today is BrookeSeam.
I'm going to try to list allthese things but I'm going to be
quick.
She's the author of multiplebooks.
It really kind of decoratedinteresting, diverse bio.
So author of multiple books.
Her most recent book may callside effects.
(00:28):
Ben Mark will talk about thaton the episode today.
She also is a coauthor on abook called Prohibition Bakery a
bacon cookbook.
So she got kind of multiplepublishing experiences.
She's a speaker.
She has created multiplebusinesses.
She travels around the worldspeaking on her experience after
being six years off,antidepressants getting
(00:49):
prescribed in her teenage yearsReally interesting story and is
a chef specializing in custommeal planning for pro athletes.
I got a lot of questions.
There are a lot of stuff.
I figure today we'll talk a lotabout the memoir writing
process.
I think that's what a lot offolks listening or watching is
going to be interested in.
(01:09):
How do you take life experience, create a compelling memoir and
then use that to really createa brand speak, like all the
things that you've done, brooke,and so I think it's going to be
really interesting.
Brooke, welcome, great to haveyou here.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Thanks, chandler.
You've just explained why I'meffectively categorically
unhirable Companies.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
I tell you what I've been called a lot worse, oh man.
Well, hey, let's start here.
Why did you decide to write abook about your life experience
and what seems like?
I haven't read the book yet,but it seems like some pretty
tough life.
Read the book yet, but it seemslike some pretty tough life
experiences, which is oftenurges people to write a book.
But then often people are like,wow, am I really going to write
(01:52):
about this?
How did you decide to do that?
How did you see it fitting inwith, kind of, your brand, your
business, what you're doing?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
I mean, one of the fallacies about memoir is that
typically, if you're writingabout your whole life experience
, if you're 30, how old was I?
31 when I started writing ityou haven't really lived enough
to rationalize a memoir.
But the exception to that ruleis if you have a very specific
life experience that couldsomehow speak to a wide group of
(02:19):
people, which was the case forme.
My book May Cause Side Effectsreally only spans about one year
in time and so the other restof my life is categorically
irrelevant for this book.
But I was medicated when I was15.
I was put on a cocktail ofantidepressants and then a bunch
of other drugs to counter theside effects of those
antidepressants.
When I was 15, after my fatherdied and I didn't question
(02:43):
anything there, nobody did and Ispent the next 15 years on that
cocktail of drugs.
But basically I wasn't better,if anything, I was worse, and it
took a long time.
But it started to dawn on methat I shouldn't be depressed
and suicidal if I was takingantidepressants that were
working.
And that thought and the factthat I got this weird
(03:06):
opportunity to travel the worldfor a year pushed me to go see a
psychiatrist and I told herwhat the deal was and she pulled
me off one of my drugs, coldturkey, which was incredibly
irresponsible and it led tosevere antidepressant withdrawal
.
I was on the lowest dose of onedrug on the market, so that's
why she pulled me off coldturkey.
(03:26):
That's an important caveat.
So she thought she was doingthe right thing, but my story
ended up being more or less likeI was on the lowest dose of one
of these drugs and also I had ayear going into two years of
antidepressant withdrawal sohorrific I got a book deal out
of it.
That tells you something.
(03:50):
So that's what my memoir isabout.
It is about the experience ofgoing through antidepressant
withdrawal, working through it.
It is designed for patients,caregivers and doctors.
It's written from a veryspecific perspective that allows
you to be right in the story asit's happening.
So it gives an idea of whatantidepressant withdrawal is
like, to the extent that you can.
It's not a pop science book.
(04:10):
It's not filled with data.
It's not about that.
The idea was that if someonewas going through it or you were
caring or treating someone whowas going through it, you would
be able to better recognize thisthrough my work and stop
misdiagnosing people, which isreally common, and also to just
have a fuller idea of what thissyndrome is like, because it is
(04:32):
something that affects a hugepercentage of people, that is
kind of a silent epidemic inthis country and all over the
world.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
That's good.
I like that, and I think alesson for folks watching or
listening is zooming intospecific parts of your life
experience, because unlessyou're famous, a celebrity et
cetera, if you go, some peoplewant to write a memoir.
It's like who cares?
Yeah, how can you make itspecific and helpful for people?
And so I love that you did that, and so kind of to your point,
(05:03):
even at 31,.
Hey, I can write about my lifestory in a way that's going to
be helpful and meaningful forpeople.
Where did you had you alreadybeen speaking about that prior
to the book?
Was the book kind of the firstway where you said, hey, I'm
going to start talking aboutthis?
What did that look like?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
When I first started writing the book, I had the
naive assumption, based on myexperience with the Prohibition
Bakery book, because I am a chefby trade.
So I had been through atraditional publisher before.
It was a bigger publisher and,quite frankly, the process was
very easy.
Someone came to us and was likewe want to publish your book
and we said okay and then a bookhappened.
There was no strife about it,it wasn't a horrible- Very
unusual.
(05:48):
Yes, we didn't make crap tons ofmoney off of it, but it was
just such an easy door to walkthrough.
We didn't have to deal withtrying to pitch to multiple
agents or publishers or any ofthat.
An agent showed up and thenshe's like here you go and we
were done.
I naively thought with mymemoir that it would be more or
less the same process, that allI had to do was have an
(06:08):
interesting story and write adecent proposal or something,
and that it would just be easy.
It wasn't.
There was a lot that happened.
I ended up firing my agent, wekilled the deal and then four
years passed between findinganother agent and getting
another deal.
So it was quite dramatic.
(06:29):
But as I was writing it and Iknew that it would probably come
out eventually, combined withthe fact that I started to see
the cultural temperature aroundthis topic change, I knew that
someone was going to tell thisstory it may as well be me and
so I started quietly speaking onit.
I literally had a couple smallpublic speaking opportunities,
(06:50):
kind of slam poet type things,where you just stand up in a bar
and tell your story.
That was pretty terrifying,even though there were only 15
people in the room.
And then I wrote a couple ofarticles for major media outlets
and it was just kind of like aslow creep into it where I was
testing the waters to see howcomfortable I felt about talking
about the topic, what thefeedback would be like because
(07:12):
it's kind of controversial,which is stupid, but it is so I
didn't know how comfortable Iwas going to feel, kind of going
into the line of fire.
But then once the book came outand it actually went global and
really nothing bad has happened.
Now I'm just kind of like tookall the, took all the shackles
off and I'm just going forwardand saying what I think is right
(07:34):
about this and dealing with theblowback one way or another.
But it's actually not that badbecause I think people are
really starting to wake up tothe idea that what we're doing
isn't working very well.
So maybe we do need to betalking about this.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah, I love that and completely agree.
So you had an agent.
You said it sounds like had adeal.
That deal kind of blew up.
You decided to fire him.
Then shopped it around, foundanother.
What's the backstory around allthat?
Did you at any point in thatconsider self-publishing?
How did you make your back,your way back to what?
(08:08):
Sounds like a deal, Like whatdid that look like?
Speaker 2 (08:11):
I did not consider self-publishing at any point
during this process for a veryspecific reason, and that's just
because I am not a researcheror a PhD on this topic.
So I knew that if this wasgoing to be taken seriously, it
needed to have the backing of alegitimate traditional publisher
.
That has proved to be a very,very smart decision.
Now it's fine, right, I'mestablished as a recognized
(08:46):
expert or whatever you want tocall it, in this industry.
So it's like actually would beeasier for me to self-publish a
book now than it would have beenwhen it came out.
But the earlier process I mean,I'm still kind of almost
embarrassed about this, but I'mgoing to share it because
hopefully somebody else won'thave to go through it.
But I had had an agent who wasleft over from a different time
in my life and she had gotten adeal with what I now know is a
(09:13):
hybrid slash vanity press.
But I didn't really understandthat at the time.
It was right when those thingswere kind of new, so they were
still kind of billing themselvesas oh, we'll take half the.
You know, we're going to giveyou 50% payout on the royalties,
and it sounded like such a gooddeal.
And you know, then I didn'thave to pay out the advance.
I mean, there were all thesethings that seemed really good
(09:35):
about it, and I know that thereare a couple more reputable
hybrid publishers out there.
Now this was not one of themand those ones did not exist at
this time.
So this one ended up reallybeing more vanity and borderline
predatory.
And I knew that that was thecase because I got sent a galley
(09:56):
of another book that thesepeople were publishing and their
editor dropped the ball, whichwas Red Flag no 1.
And so they wanted me to justlook it over and see if I could
point out any typos.
Red flag number two.
And I looked at it andliterally there was a major typo
in the dedication on the firstpage and I was like this is not
a good sign.
And then I kept reading throughit.
(10:16):
I got about 25 pages in andthere were so many errors and
this book was like pulled fromgoing into production.
So there were so many errors.
And this, this book, was likepulled from going into
production, so there were somany errors in 25 pages.
I lost count and I was like noone here is doing a quality
control check or job, so I justrealized that there had been a
bit of a dupe, dupe that hadhappened and that somehow this
(10:36):
crappy agent was in collusionwith them and they were just
kind of trying to make money.
And again it this all kind ofhappened.
This all came around from theback end and surprised me.
It actually started off legitand it took the turn of
predatory halfway through theprocess, which is why I didn't
see what was going on and in theend I fired everyone.
(11:01):
And then this agent ended upfleeing the state in her
Winnebago with her two dogs.
There are multiple of herauthors that she stole a bunch
of royalties from, including me,and that has been just an
ongoing weird twist from this.
Wow, Over the course of likethe past seven, eight years
where I'm just like well, youknow, this is how we learn.
(11:22):
I guess it's a good thing.
I didn't lose a significantamount of money, but there are a
lot of bad actors in this space.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Agreed, agreed, and I appreciate you sharing that for
exactly that right reason, orfor exactly that reason right,
because there's a lot of peopleout there that may not know that
exists and you probably justsave some people some time.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Can I give people one really important piece of
advice that I've learned fromthis story?
I'd love that when you have anagent and royalties are involved
, always make sure the publisheris cutting separate checks for
you and your agent, based onwhatever the percentage cut is.
The problem was is that Ididn't know that at the time and
I didn't know my agent waspredatory and so the publishing
(12:04):
company set her all theroyalties directly and then it
was in our agreement that shewould then cut checks to me.
Uh, and she didn't do that andI also had no clue.
Like she was, like she was theone who was getting all the
reports about how many bookswe'd sold and how much money we
were supposed to be making.
So I never saw any of of thatand when I stopped receiving
(12:25):
communication around it, I justassumed the book had stopped
selling, when in reality thechecks were just being sent to
someone who was taking them.
So when I have my agent now hername's Beth Davey, I love her
so much, we talked about this inthe very beginning and she was
like, yeah, I never touch moneyfrom my clients.
Like we, the publisher willsend the 15% cut or whatever it
(12:49):
is to her.
I get the rest Two separatechecks.
That's got to be part of it,and if it's not, that should be
a giant red flag to run far away.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Yeah, that's a really great lesson.
I mean it's more an integrityand it's just easier.
This is, I mean you think aboutit.
It's like if I'm an agent, Idon't want to have to deal with
cutting people checks, I justwant to get my check and my
authors get their check.
That makes a lot of sense.
So how did you find Beth?
And then what, what changed andwhat's worked well, kind of in
(13:20):
the agent relationship with her,and then, and then her helping
you with the book well, well,beth is just wonderful and
distinctly not a criminal, sothat's that made the
relationships much better.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Uh, just starting there.
But I actually found herbecause I had gone through some
writing retreats with LauraMunson, who's a New York Times
bestselling author and runs justthe most soul-affirming writing
retreat out of Montana.
I mean, it's the kind of placewhere I showed up there and for
(13:54):
five days I just thought this iswhat life should be like for
artists.
It was beautiful, and she madethe introduction to Beth because
at that point I had been deepenough into my memoir writing
that I had some real meat toshow, and so I spent.
I went to Laura's retreat.
I kind of got the direction Ineeded to go.
(14:15):
I spent about three months.
I just rented an apartment inSeattle, basically holed up like
a monk for three months, wroteout a draft that was finally
strong and ultimately that'swhat got me to deal with Beth,
and then Beth went out to sellthe book in April of 2020, which
was poor.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Which was what you said.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Which was poor because that was roughly three
weeks into the pandemic.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Oh, I see.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
That was not a time to try and sell a book about
psychiatric drug withdrawal whenprescriptions were being given
out at record rates.
So it's kind of been.
It's been clunky from start tofinish, but still got there.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Well, it's landed in a great spot, obviously.
So I guess what was the bigbreakthrough where you got the
deal and then got it published?
Speaker 2 (15:06):
You know, there wasn't really a big, big
breakthrough.
It was actually kind of I hadstarted to transition to the
mental state of like this justisn't going to happen, because
the I don't think this wouldhave been the case had the
timing not been what it was withthe pandemic.
But the book kept getting sentto editors and we would get this
great feedback from the editorsand then they would pass it
(15:27):
along and it kept getting killedin marketing or by legal, and
that literally probably happeneda dozen times.
I mean, it was so frustratingand so I, you know there are a
lot of threads I can pull atthat to try and explain why.
but my, you know, my, the big, Ithink the big thing is that at
(15:49):
the end of the day, it's bigpublishing houses don't really
want to rock the boat, you knowand they don't want to be liable
for exactly so I just kind ofthought this isn't going to
happen and I I really had tomake you know, come to terms
with the fact that this bookjust might sit in a drawer and
never get read and kind of likethings happen in life.
(16:12):
Once I really got comfortablein that place.
This isn't happening.
That's when the deal camethrough so let's want to.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
I want to fast forward to memoir marketing and
kind of how this fits in withyour brand and all that stuff
here in just a second.
But I want to maybe firstbacktrack into the writing piece
.
You mentioned the writingretreat and then, and then
locking yourself in yourapartment in Seattle and that
sort of thing.
Can you talk about how hard oreasy it was to write about this
experience?
And especially because we hearthis all the time from our
(16:42):
authors, writing a memoir cankind of be this cathartic
experience.
It's like free therapy reallydifficult.
You don't know how much of itdo you share, how much do you
not, and even just the writingprocess can be pretty difficult.
So can you talk about what wasyour experience?
Was that your experience, wasit not?
What did that kind of look like?
Speaker 2 (17:01):
You know I hear that from memoirists all the time and
I don't identify with that atall.
Like to me, from an experiencestandpoint, there wasn't
anything difficult about it inthe sense that, like I had done
so much work on the healing, Iwasn't writing from the wound
anymore.
I was writing from the scar.
I was writing from theperspective of how do I make
(17:22):
this story effective for thereader, which I really think is
the healthiest, because you'rewriting about a subjective thing
that happened to you.
But you have to be objective inthe way you put it on the page,
because it's not about you,it's about how it's going to
(17:46):
land.
So the tricky part for me wasmostly finding the correct tone
and voice, because theexperience is really, really
intense and I love books, I lovereading.
I spent a huge chunk of mywriting time reading.
I wasn't actually writing mybook, I was reading, I was
(18:09):
studying people whose works Iadmired and trying to figure out
okay, how did they create thisnarrative arc?
What about their voice?
Sounds resonant to me, whatdoesn't?
And most memoirs written infirst person past it's like it's
in past tense there tends to be.
The memoirists I really likeare beautiful writers.
(18:33):
There's poetry in theirlanguage.
There's imagery, it's beautiful.
And every time I tried to writelike that in my story it sucked
.
Every single time it just likeI went into this weird wise
narrator place and it justsucked and I couldn't figure it
out because I knew technically,I knew how to write, but I'm
(18:57):
like, and I also knew thedifference between this sucks
and am I insecure about mywriting and I just need like it
doesn't suck, but I'm not sureLike I knew the difference.
So I knew it sucked.
And so that's when, uh, that'swhen Laura was really such a
(19:18):
huge help for me because she wasreading my work and she was
like, okay, I need you to go,like go write something in first
person present.
And I was like that's weird,I've never read a book in first,
like a memoir, in first personpresent tense.
And she's just like just trustme, just do it as an exercise.
And I said okay, and again wewere in Montana, it was
beautiful.
So I take this March snowy, takemy laptop and I put on all my
(19:40):
clothes and I kind of trudgedout to this little gazebo in the
middle of this beautiful horsefarm in Montana and I just sat
there freezing and I can'tremember if I rewrote a scene
that was already written or if Iwrote something new.
I think it was almost entirelynew and it was about 1500 words.
It was all in first-personpresent.
(20:00):
I solved a huge problem in thenarrative, which was I was
trying to give the backstorywithout spending too much time
on the backstory, because if youlook at most memoirs, you're in
the thick of whatever's goingon within the first 10 pages,
but that might require you togive 30 years of backstory.
How do you do that?
Right, but somehow, switchinginto first person present, I
started working back throughtime over this 1500 words and I
(20:24):
was like, basically, thishappened, this happened, this
happened.
And this happened in thiscompletely different tone than
I've ever written in.
And it came out of me and I waslike, oh shit, this is good.
And then I was like but is it?
And then I read it to Laura andshe was like wrote you, wrote
that today?
And I said uh-huh, and she wasjust kind of like that is the
direction we go.
So when I realized that not Ihad the power in my voice in
(20:48):
first person present, everythingbecame so much easier for me to
write.
Good lord, put on dndd andfailed.
Um.
So anyway, when I, when Irealized that I had power in my
voice in first person present,that the whole narrative opened
up.
I'm not going to say it waseasy for me to write still, but
it was very easy for me to justbe like how did I feel in that
(21:11):
moment?
And basically write on the pageI am furious, and then whatever
would come would come, and sojust it allowed me a way in.
And then, because it was a bookabout the psychological turmoil
of antidepressant withdrawal,it allowed me to be nonsensical.
I could be emotional.
(21:31):
I could not make any quoteunquote sense because I was
having an experience that didn'tmake sense.
And I couldn't do that in pasttense because in past tense it
still has to make sense in a wayIn first person present.
It doesn't.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Interesting.
Wow, that's fascinating.
I think there's a few things Iwant to just highlight here that
were really good.
That you said One is writingfrom the wound versus writing
from the scar.
I think that's a reallyinteresting distinction that
will be very helpful for a lotof our authors and you just have
a high level of self-awareness,which I think probably helped
(22:06):
navigate this.
And you talked about kind ofgoing through therapy and stuff
prior to that which is helpfulto process, so that then you
have clarity when you'reactually writing.
I also liked you said thememoir is not about you, it's
about how it's going to land andreally how it's going to help
the reader Really importantthing for people to think about.
And then, lastly, I think youknow we have a memoir program
(22:29):
and a nonfiction program and afiction program and stuff like
that is that our memoir trainingvery much, much more closely
resembles our fiction trainingBecause you're writing a story
that's engaging.
It just happens to be thatyou're the main character,
versus a lot of nonfictionwriting is very kind of bland,
(22:52):
direct, etc.
It sounds like that's kind ofwas your experience as well.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Yeah, I mean, there's so many parallels between
memoir and fiction.
Even the way they sell issimilar.
A nonfiction book and let's sayit's a pop science book or some
historical thing.
You sell it based on proposal.
So your job is to write adetailed proposal, basically an
outline of what's going to be inthis book, and then you take it
to your agent, who takes it tothe publisher and they look at
(23:19):
it and they say, yes, this makessense or no, it doesn't, or
whatever, and you move on.
But there's not nearly as muchscrutiny of the voice, of that
(23:39):
kind of writing, just writingvoice.
But you as a person has to comethrough the page and so if it
sounded a memoir unless, again,you're a celebrity or someone
(24:03):
who just has such a presencethat they feel like they can
sell it, no matter what thewriting's like you have to
basically have a full manuscriptand that's what they judge it
on, and so you really do have tothink of it more like fiction.
And then you have to become ahuge editor of your own story
(24:26):
and I guess in a way where itcan sort of maybe be therapeutic
for some people, as if it helpsyou untangle the stories you
tell yourself about whathappened.
Then I could see how that wouldhelp people.
But for me, I felt like I'dalready done that and it was
very clear to me that my bookwas about the year I spent in
(24:48):
antidepressant withdrawal andabsolutely nothing else.
To the point where I opened thebook and the preface saying you
don't need to know why we'rehere, it is irrelevant.
All the shit that happened inmy life that contributed to my
feelings of depression, it iscompletely irrelevant to this
story.
I did that strategically.
One it really was irrelevant.
(25:09):
The book was aboutantidepressant withdrawal.
It wasn't about the years ofdepression leading up to it.
Two, this is a topic wherepeople can get into the
suffering Olympics very quickly,and so it felt useless to me to
basically create a story that'slike oh, woe is me, you know,
feel sorry for me Like I was,this is why I'm sick and needed
(25:32):
this or whatever.
That would just open people upto comparison.
Right, and that wasn't thepoint, because whether or not
you were put on antidepressantsas a kid like I was or whether
or not you were put on thembecause there was an event in
your life, whether or not youhad no event in your life and
you were just felt sad, or ifyou lost a child, or you were
put on because of menopause.
(25:52):
None of those reasons matter.
When it comes to getting off ofthese drugs, everyone's in the
same boat, and that is a rockyboat with zero research.
So that is what the book neededto focus on, and when I started
stripping things away about myown personal reasons for it and
trying to justify it, it gotmuch easier to write because it
became clear what my North Starwas.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
That's good and a really good observation.
Hard to do too, because as ahuman you're like hey, but I'm
interesting and my lifeexperience is interesting.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Yeah, but you're not and it's not.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
All right, you said it, not me.
Hey, I want to talk marketing abit, because I think this is
kind of a black box for a lot ofpeople is how do you market a
memoir and what does that looklike?
So how did you do it?
And then, especially, how didthis, uh, help build or relate
to your personal brand, speakingthat you're doing all that kind
(26:47):
of thing okay.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Well, chandler, again , this is a story not of what
way, right, but of what wentwrong.
So learn from me, okay.
So the thing there there'smultiple Marketing is such a big
term, right?
Such a big word.
I think there are multiplestrategies.
But when you have a memoir thatyou know I know my book was
(27:13):
technically strong enough tocompete with the best-selling
memoirs on the market.
I know it was technicallystrong enough and I think if it
was more available in the world,more well-known, it would keep
selling and it would make a shitton of money selling and it
(27:36):
would make a shit ton of money.
But there is quite a hump toget to that point, because books
, especially memoirs that arevery well known in the world,
didn't happen by accident.
It wasn't just that peoplehappened to find it and it took
off.
No, it was a coordinated effortstarting about a year before,
with the publishing companiesand podcast tours, speaking
tours with the publishingcompanies and podcast tours,
(27:57):
speaking tours, magazine tours,getting picked for Oprah or
Reese Witherspoon's book club.
That seems like, oh, they justpicked it a week ago.
They didn't, they picked it ayear ago and everyone has been
prepping for that book to be thebook in that particular
category.
So if you don't slot into thatspace right away?
Particular category so if youdon't slot into that space right
away, I mean, yeah, there are ahandful of rare books that can
(28:17):
really take off.
The Martian, comes to mind,started off as a self-publishing
book that took off.
And Andy Weir we eventuallymade it to be within traditional
publishing houses, but for mostpeople that's not what happens.
So then you pay out of pocketfor PR people.
You hope your publisher doessomething, or if you don't have
(28:37):
a publisher, you figure out howto do something yourself.
But I am a little biased onthis in a negative way, because
none of that went well for us.
It was very little fruit wasbared, given the amount of money
was spent on PR.
I think there was a lot of trainwrecks that happened.
I watched it all happen and waspowerless to do it.
But a big thing was nobodystarted early enough.
(29:00):
I got my book deal in July of2021.
The book came out in September.
I was trying to get people onboard to do what they needed to
do at least six months ahead oftime, but everyone just said, oh
, we're going to start August1st and I knew that that wasn't
going to work.
I knew it wasn't going to, butI was powerless at that point
because I had given away thepower.
And that is what happens whenyou go down traditional
(29:22):
publishing routes is you do giveaway a lot of the power and I
didn't have $25,000 sitting inmy bank account that I was going
to go hire people out of pocketmyself.
So I kind of had to just dealwith that and it did not.
It did not go well and I thinkthere was a huge missed
opportunity.
But as far as the stuff I didmyself, when I, when I
(29:42):
recognized that that train wasnot really going to leave the
station, I, you know, I got somepieces placed in traditional
media in traditional media NewYork Post, business Insider, god
, what else?
Washington Examiner hadsomething in the Washington Post
.
Those kind of op-ed things youdo.
Nice, they help a little bit,but they don't help that much.
(30:10):
I mean, for example, I had abig op-ed in the New York Post
that was both print and onlinewithin a week of my book coming
out.
If you look at the Amazon data,it only sold 300 books.
It's not.
I think doing that stuff isworth it, but don't expect it to
launch you to a bestseller.
That's going to require a lotmore strategy.
So for me, when I kind ofrealized, okay, we weren't going
(30:32):
to have a book that was goingto hit the bestseller list
within, you know, a few monthsafter launching, and then when
it became clear that this maynever hit a bestseller list and
that that doesn't mean the bookisn't worth reading by any means
most books aren't on bestsellerlists I just realized that, you
know, I had strategicallywritten the book to be a
perennial seller from thebeginning.
(30:53):
There's no dates in the book.
There's literally not a singledate other than the last day I
wrote it.
I didn't want anyone to knowwhat period of time this was
taking place in, so it wouldcontinue to be relevant over
time.
So I've just taken the strategyof this is a perennial selling
book.
It's going to be evergreen,it's going to keep selling.
So all I have to do is keeptalking about it and it will
keep selling, and there could besome sort of cultural spark
(31:19):
that lights an absolute fire andsuddenly the book blows up.
But maybe not, odds areprobably no.
But it's still consistentlyselling copies and I'm
consistently getting feedback onit from readers and I'm still
doing feedback on it fromreaders and I'm still doing
podcasts and speaking and stuff.
So it will continue to chugalong.
But I think defining whatyou're Redefining, what success
(31:43):
means to you, is a requirementin this process.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
That's a big one.
It's a really big one and Ilove we call Essentially what
you're doing, we call it theone-year launch, right when it's
just hey, I'm just going tokeep talking about this for a
year.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Yeah, I'm on a two-year launch now.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Instead of a week, which is how most people, the
two big mistakes they make,which you alluded to, are they
focus only on launch week.
And then they focus only on thebestseller list and you can hit
(32:18):
the bestseller list and have agood launch week and have a book
that doesn't do much at allbecause you had a good week and
so building that long-termmomentum in it, which obviously
you're doing.
Let's maybe last piece, andthen we can wrap up, is how have
you bridged this into yourbusiness and where has this
showed up for speaking gigs andfor anything else that you're
doing?
How has it helped there?
Speaker 2 (32:29):
That's a good question, and it's been a big
struggle because, as we alludedto my extremely confusing bio at
the beginning, so I've spent myentire career paid career, if
you will as a professional chef.
So I went to culinary school,worked in fancy kitchens, owned
a bakery in Manhattan which iswhen the start of my book begins
(32:50):
is when I was working in mybakery, I competed on the show
Chopped.
I was in withdrawal while I wason Chopped and then I sort of
got rid of that whole aspect ofmy life and started healing from
this process.
But I've never left theculinary industry because you
get to a point where, well,that's what I do and that's what
(33:10):
people pay me to do.
So, since I'm categoricallyunhirable, I need to keep doing
that in order to pay my bills.
So I've actually transitioned.
Now I work with pro athletes andwhat's fascinating and it's
only in the past couple of yearsI've been able to bridge
everything together is that youknow, I understand how the food
system works.
I understand how thepharmaceutical system works and
the mental health system works,and really, if you want to pull
(33:39):
back the curtain on those things, you just swap the words
pharmaceutical for ultraprocessed foods and big pharma
for big food and so on and soforth.
It's the same playbook.
And not only that, they reallyfeed into each other.
So in my work in advocacyaround withdrawal, I have a lot
of people whose bodies arecompletely wrecked Mine was
completely wrecked coming off ofthese drugs and I've had to use
food and my understanding ofhow food is medicine or a drug
(34:01):
to heal and and that when I whenI compare it directly to how I
work with my pro athletes, likewhether or not they're in the
mlb or the nfl, I'm actuallyfeeding them in an identical way
as I would feed someone whomore or less who's coming out of
you know severe antidepressantwithdrawal and trying to heal.
Because, as it turns out, thefoods that are actually really
(34:23):
help us heal are kind of thesame and limited, and you know
they're not in a package and youknow they're recognizable as a
whole food and then everythingelse is just the noise, and so
in the past few years I'veactually really been able to
bridge these two things together.
Now, from a marketingstandpoint, that that is really
(34:45):
great for people who want tolisten, you know, and who
actually can think of this stuff.
On a little bit of a higherlevel topic.
Instagram hates it because I'mcompeting with two completely
different algorithms and so if Itry and talk about my food work
on Instagram when I'm talkingabout my book work, most of the
time it just dies and the wholealgorithm gets confused.
(35:08):
So I've recently decided, okay,we need to separate this stuff.
And so my primary Instagram iscompletely about just withdrawal
, advocacy work.
And then I have a chefInstagram that's a little bit
more about like this is how I'm,you know, this is how I'm
cooking for my NFL players thisweek or whatever, but and so
that that helps social media.
But I do.
(35:30):
I do all the time wonder howthey interact with each other,
and I don't know if negative isreally the way to put it, but
because withdrawal and mentalhealth can be so polarizing, it
does make me nervous to talkabout it so publicly and then
try and go market myself as achef and try and get clients.
If I happen to run into aclient or an employer who
(35:52):
doesn't want to rock the boat,they might not want to be
associated with me, you know,and I sort of just had to accept
that as a consequence of thesituation and basically, like
you know the right people aregoing to come to me and the
wrong ones won't, and but it's alittle scary.
It's very scary to be so publicabout something so that's so
vulnerable and just still existin a world that's not totally
(36:15):
around that like.
I don't make any money reallyoff of my advocacy work, so it's
basically like my shootingmyself in the foot from a career
standpoint by doing this, butit's to me it's far more
important than agreed.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
The cooking stuff when I think I'm on long enough
timeline.
It it's a big magnet.
It repels the people whowouldn't like you or want to
work with you anyway, or viceversa that you wouldn't want to
work with, and it attracts thepeople who would and resonate
with that, which I think is asuper smart move.
I'll ask this last question, ortwo, brooke question one would
(36:51):
be what would your advice bewhat you know now to someone
who's listening?
Last question or two, brookeQuestion one would be what would
your advice be, knowing whatyou know now, to someone who's
listening to this, thinkingabout writing a memoir?
Speaker 2 (37:08):
knowing what you know .
Now I think, as anyone who hasany desire to write a memoir
should give it a shot, and alsothere's no shame in saying that
was a good idea, but maybe we'renot going to fully go through
with it.
Like I do really something, I'mtrying to discourage anyone.
It's just that like you have toknow why you're doing it.
If you're writing a book for apurpose you're writing a cause
(37:29):
based book then you have towrite a cause based book.
You can't, and you have to takeall the crap that comes with
that.
If you want to write a memoirbecause you want to put your
story out into the world and youwant to self-publish it and
you're doing it for you, thenwrite that book.
But try not to get the twoconfused.
(37:49):
I get really frustrated withthat sometimes just because it's
like get the two confused.
I get really frustrated withthat sometimes just because it's
like like we've said.
I mean, it's kind of like whensomeone's trying to explain your
dreams, like most people don'twant to hear about other
people's dreams, like it's justnot that interesting.
Or drug trips, whatever.
It is Right, it's just not thatinteresting to anyone except
for you, and I'm not trying tosay that my work is like, so
(38:12):
interesting everyone should readit.
I'm actually the opposite thatmost of my life is completely
not worth putting on paper andexpecting other people to be
interested in it, right?
So just get clear on that.
And the sooner you can getclear on that, the easier the
process is going to be.
Because, again, this iscompletely about managing
expectations.
And if your expectation is thatyou're writing, if you're
(38:34):
making art for the sake ofmaking art, like I love, that
right, I love.
Kurt Vonnegut said make bad artbecause it's like what makes
for better people.
I make bad art all the time.
It's the primary thing I do inmy life is make bad art that
nobody ever sees or that only ahandful of people see, because
it brings me joy.
But that does not mean Idecided that that's how I'm
(38:54):
going to make my money and gointo this whole career off of
that.
Now, if you're doing acause-based book, there are more
options for career and for itto be something that really
becomes a big thing in your life.
But it's tricky, it's difficultand I make $1.06 for every book
I sell.
So just manage yourexpectations there.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
Yeah, it's good, Brooke, this has been awesome.
Where can people go to find outmore about you?
Speaker 2 (39:26):
to buy your book, all that good stuff.
You can find me all over theinternet at Brooke Seam.
So that's B-R-O-O-K-E-S-I-E-M,although my chef Instagram is at
Chef Brooke Seam and I have anewsletter called Happiness is a
skill.
That's brook seam at sub stackdot com.
So we talk.
I get a lot more in the weedsabout antidepressant withdrawal
and health and recovery therethan I do on social media.
And uh, what was the otherquestion?
Speaker 1 (39:47):
the book it's called.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Oh, the book, yes you can find may cause side effects
.
Wherever fine books are sold.
So it's all over Amazon, barnes, noble, wherever you can get it
in other countries, but it'snot quite as easy there.
I'm kind of working ontranslations, we'll see how that
goes, and it's on audiobook etcetera.
It's wherever you get books.
(40:09):
You can find my book.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Love it Guys, check it out.
May cause side effects.
Brooke, thank you.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Thank you so much, Chandler.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.