We were lucky to catch up with Chris O’Brien recently and have shared our conversation below.
Chris, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?
I don’t remember exactly how long this phase was, but I want to say for at least 5-6 months, I was convinced this business would be called “Retired Authors” or “Retirement Authors.” My theory: A lot of people have always wanted to write a book, but, well, that pesky 9 to 5 job got in the way. And regular, every day life got in the way. But now, with all that newfound time on their hands (although my parents say retirement is no cakewalk. Sometimes you need a vacation from vacation!), they would have time to work on that novel, or memoir, or children’s book, whatever the book might be.
But then I saw one of those library slips in the back of a book and, like Finding Nemo when Dory has her “P. Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney” epiphany, I thought wait a second… “Overdue.” Quickly followed by “Long Overdue.” I knew I had it. Brainstorm over. Long Overdue. For people’s long overdue books.
The name fits much better since it’s not always someone writing in retirement. What makes a book “long overdue” simply means that the person has been thinking about it, working on it, or trying to finish writing it for a long time. Could be a year. Could be 50 years. Our mission is to empower people to create meaningful stories. We help people start, continue, and finish writing their long overdue books.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I’ve been writing since at least second grade. Not sure how many hours I’ve logged over the years. I wrote for the Focus, our school newspaper at Midland High School, and received an English Creative Writing Degree at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. Shortly after graduation, I self-published a book of essays called “Medium Rare” and then published my first two novels, “Meet the Godfreys” and “Tour de Bathroom” six years later.
During the self-publishing process, I learned a lot about writing, rewriting, editing, and how to format a book. I took on a couple of editing projects in 2018 and 2019 and ultimately helped these authors publish their books. Then COVID hit in 2020, and I started pouring a lot of time and energy into this new passion project called “Long Overdue.”
Two moments early on felt like the stars aligning. First, an incredible book designer named Annie Leue found our website. Second, we were connected with three Chicago-area siblings who had an amazing story to tell. Their story became the book “Safe Landing,” which has now sold over 1,000 copies. Annie Leue designed our first 7 or 8 books and did an absolutely amazing job. She’s now a Book Designer at the University of Chicago Press, so talk about getting lucky with who was designing our first books! She then introduced us to Heather Nelson, who is doing an awesome job on the last 10 or so books. It’s incredible. We’re up to 20 books now. And I’m having a blast.
Few things I’m most proud of – I’m proud of the quality of our book design. I’m proud of our process, we’re not just taking a rough draft and uploading it. We help authors go through a feedback process, revisions, and fine-tuning their book to be the best it can possibly be. And I’m proud of our publication speed. Publishing a book can take years. That’s not even including how long it takes to write it. I’m committed to our authors who are trying to align their book release with important dates in the same calendar year, be that birthdays, new grandkids, book festivals. Authors shouldn’t have to wait 2-3 years to see their book become a reality.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
Early on, I was convinced it had to be all or nothing. The only way to run a business is quitting the day job, going all in, “burn the boats”, all that motivational stuff you hear. Especially on LinkedIn…
But here I am, 6 years in, and I’ve had a full-time job the entire time (except for one 6-week gap back in 2019). It’s totally possible to love the day job, love the side hustle, and love family time. If you’re not an NBA fan, this reference might fall flat, but I feel like I started with a “Kobe” mentality: obsessive, long hours, and no separation between the business and me. But I’ve ended up more like a Nikola Jokic mentality; the success or failure of Long Overdue isn’t my entire identity. It’s something I love to do, something I picture myself doing, honestly, for the rest of my life. But it’s not the end all be all, and I’m not in a rush. I can’t wait to go from where we’re at now (20 books) to over 100, but it’s okay if that takes a year, five years, or 10. Each book gives me new energy, and I also find joy in daydreaming some mildly absurd goals for the business like turning our books into movies, or building physical bookstores in Chicago and Traverse City (MI), or buying a VW ID Buzz and turning that into a mobile bookstore that tours around the country (or at least the Midwest). It’s like writing a book why not dream up some big ideas? Makes the story more fun to write.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
One surprise – I really thought most of the books would be someone writing their life story or maybe someone recording or helping their parent or grandparent record their life stories. But that really hasn’t been the case. After a year or two, I separated that particular biography/memoir/autobiography idea and called it “Noteworthy.” But I was still trying to weave it into the larger Long Overdue concept. So, every Mother’s Day or Father’s Day, I’d promote the “Record your Noteworthy Stories” idea in the newsletter. Led to a couple of projects, but again, not nearly as popular as I thought it’d be. Every month that goes by, Long Overdue’s identity continues to solidify, and “Noteworthy” keeps fading further and further away.
I’m at the point now where I think Noteworthy either becomes its own business, or I have to say, “You know what, I still like this idea a lot, but it’s not gonna be me that figures it out.” And that is really, really hard to do. It’s like having an individual chapter you really like in your book but realizing the book might work better without it. That’s a hard thing to give up! But learning that building the business has its own editing/revising process, too.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://longoverduebooks.com
- Instagram: @longoverduebooks
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LongOverdueBooks/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/long-overdue-books
