Chronological or Topical?

I’ve been wondering if I’m going about this book correctly.

I’m writing it chronologically. The book begins, for the most part, with the launch of @U2 in 1995 and the online environment in which that happened. And then I’m mostly going year-by-year through the site’s growth and the unique/important things that happened.

Every so often, I’ll be writing about something that requires me to fast-forward years ahead to add some context, but for the most part, you’re going to read a chronological account of @U2’s history.

But I’m wondering if I should be taking a more topical approach.

For example, rather than writing about how our relationship with the band’s PR team began in 2001, then writing about it some more in the Vertigo tour section in 2005, then again in the 360 tour section, etc. — what if I wrote an entire chapter just about our relationship with the PR team?

Would it make more sense to have all of that material together? Or is it best kept separate, as part of the chronological chapter approach?

I’m really not sure.

For now, I’m going to keep writing chronologically. It’s good to get everything written out, and I think the year-by-year approach helps me remember things, too.

But in the back of my mind, I’m wondering if, when I finish the chronological version of the book, will I want to re-organize it into a topical approach. Or maybe…and this sounds crazy to me right now, but who knows…will I want to create a second version and let you choose which one to read?