Should You Rewrite And Republish Your Book?
Reader AN writes in with an interesting question:
“A possible question to explore is whether it’s a good or worthwhile idea to revise and republish completed novels. Does doing this have merit artistically? Financially, it seems to be ill advised. To me it makes sense from a ‘I want to perfect my magnum opus’ kind of way, but financially it probably does not for the effort involved. Is it possible to have worthwhile success by republishing and doing a heavy marketing push? I ask because an author that I enjoy republished two novels with extensive edits and include hundreds of pages of new fiction. Some plots were altered. Some characters were completely rewritten and new scenes were even added. I found that I immensely enjoyed the revisions and additions even though the first editions were already excellent. While I did buy the new editions, it was only because I happened to see a comment on the authors blog about the rewrites and I was curious. It was happenstance really. I would like to hear your thoughts on this if you have the interest and time.”
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I should start off my answer by saying this isn’t something I would do. When it comes to writing, my attitude is that of Pontius Pilate: “Quod scripsi, scripsi.” In English, what I have written, I have written.
That said, I have changed minor things – typo corrections, maybe changing a sentence if readers consistently don’t understand it, that kind of thing. I did change the titles of the STEALTH & SPELLS series because I thought people were confusing them with the SEVENFOLD SWORD books. But I haven’t completely rewritten and republished a previously published novel in any substantial way.
For myself, at least, I think it’s always better to keep moving forward. If I look back at nearly anything I’ve written, I always think I could have done this or that better. But that line of thought can be a psychological trap for writers, leading them to endlessly repolish old work instead of forging ahead with something new.
That said, what works for me will not work for everyone. I have seen writers rewrite and republish old books.
If that is something you want to do, I think you first have to ask yourself five questions
1.) Is There Sufficient Demand?
That is, will be people interested in reading a rewritten book, or would they much rather have the next book in the series? There are only 24 hours in the day, and that means there is only so much writing time. Would your time be better spent writing a new book instead of rewriting an old one?
As reader AN said above, a passion project is one thing. But if it’s not a passion project and you spend a lot of time rewriting and republishing the book and no one buys it, then that’s time that could have been better spent elsewhere.
2.) Will it annoy readers?
It’s important to remember that a writer’s perception of his or her work often has no alignment whatsoever with what the readers think of that work.
Like, you could look at one of your books, and think it is flawed and in need of serious revision. By contrast, it could be a reader’s favorite one of your books, and indeed it could be one of the reader’s favorite books overall. If you rewrite the book, that could really annoy the readers, especially if the book in question is a favorite of many of your readers.
3.) Is It Worth Your Time?
We touched on this above, but there’s only so much time to write in any given day. Would rewriting a previously published book be the best use of yours?
4.) Is It Worth Rewriting?
As we mentioned above, a writer’s judgment of his or her own work is often not in agreement with what the readers think of that book. And writers are notoriously poor judges of their own writing. I suspect that’s a reflection of how random writing can be sometimes. Like, you can plan something for months, and no one really notices, but something you threw in at the last minute becomes everyone’s favorite scene in a book.
An example: I have a relative who is an amazing cook, but if you compliment her food, she gets angry because she never thinks it’s good enough and she only sees the flaws (which, to be honest, almost always exist only in her mind). Writers often have something of the same relationship with their books.
So the book might not be as bad as you think it is, and rewriting it might be unnecessary.
5.) Would You Be Psychologically Better Off Writing The Next Book?
Writers, like many creatives, are prone to certain psychological traps, and two of them are endlessly repolishing old work and procrastination.
You see some writers who get caught in the trap of endlessly rewriting and repolishing their first chapter, or their first book. Would republishing an older book be an aspect of that?
Procrastination is something else to which writers are prone. It’s very easy to catch yourself doing “writing-adjacent” work like updating your website or whatever instead of actually writing down new words. Writing new stuff is always a bit of an expenditure of energy, and the human tendency is to procrastinate when faced with expending energy. That’s why at the gym you often see newcomers spending a lot of time fiddling with their playlists or trying to figure out the TVs instead of getting down to business with their workouts. It’s also why otherwise successful writers fall into the trap of writing prequels – it’s easier to expand upon the established story then striking out in a new direction. Republishing an old book might well be an aspect of that.
6.) Let’s Summarize!
So, to sum up: completely rewriting and republishing an old book isn’t something I would do.
That said, it’s not necessarily a bad idea, so long as your answers to the previous five questions are good ones.
-JM
Interesting timing on this question, as I have recently given up on a series half way through because of the way one of the central characters was written. Most of the writing is fine, enjoyable even, but the one character kind of poisoned the well for me. It also means that, as the author has now started a second series, I am concerned that this too will contain a character as badly thought out as the first series. Should I continue to invest in this authors work? A readers time and money are both limited after all.
To get back to the central question then, should that author rewrite the first series? For the sake of my sanity, yes absolutely. Having said that, due to the negative emotions now associated with that series, it probably wouldn’t be enough to make me buy/read the books again. And given the effort involved in rewriting a five book series, changing the necessary plot points, scenes etc, it cant possibly be worth it in terms of time invested vs financial reward.
The only sensible way forward is to make the author aware of my distaste and to hope they dont make the same mistake again, and if necessary take my time and money elsewhere.
Pass me the mind bleach please.
I suppose convincing a reader to re-read a republished book would be another layer of difficulty on top of that.