Why I’m Re-Editing My First Book
Three reasons you should and as many why you shouldn’t!
Whether you write fiction, non-fiction or are building your career as a Medium blogger, do you grapple with this question?
I wish my book/short story/article [delete as applicable] could be better?
I know I do.
If like me you are an independent author who, for various reasons — some good and some through necessity — have chosen a self-publishing route, we have one significant advantage. Total control of our work. When we publish, how and where we issue our “masterpiece” and if we want to revisit our work after publication, are all within our control.
Welcome to the writer’s dilemma — I know it could be better so should I go back and improve it?
The case for the defence
I have one self-published novel and a second written that I’m editing. It’s several years since taking the step to put my head above the parapet with my first book and, by and large, the response was encouraging and it has a respectable Amazon review rating — and not created by friends and family I should add!
Most fledgeling authors will have no budget for such luxuries as Copy or Line Editors and are balancing day jobs with family and their love of writing. That’s me in a nutshell.
It wasn’t a surprise when some of the review comments on my book picked up some editing deficiencies. I knew there were going to be some I missed. I just hoped my editing skills kept them to a minimum. When I published, tools such as Grammarly weren’t available (or I was unaware) so I was relying on the trusty Word Spelling and Grammar checker.
How many other writer’s first steps into publishing followed a similar path? I imagine I’m not alone.
Reason 1: a poor worker always blames their tools
A few years on, and with tools such as Grammarly (which I use) and ProWritingAid (which I love!) part of my editing arsenal, the errors in my first book scream to be corrected.
Like your first crush, my debut novel will always hold a special fondness for me, but I know I can correct the basic mistakes below with minimal fuss:
- Use of passive voice
- Weak and frequent adverbs
- A tendency to start too many sentences with “-ing” words
Reason 2: it will reflect badly (adverb alert!) on my next book, which will be much better (I hope)
Once I’ve got through the pain of editing — the one task I loathe as a writer — I’ll be making plans for publishing book number two. Marketing wisdom tells us if someone enjoys one of your books, they are much more likely to read something else you wrote. Great news!
Well yes, but assuming I don’t make the amateur errors I made in my first book, do I want a valuable reader to work their way through something else I know is fixable? Will this colour their view of my second (better edited, fingers crossed) book and put them off reading anything else I write in the future?
Would you take this risk? I’m not sure I’ll be taking that chance.
Reason 3: my marketing will reflect I’m a serious writer — and not just a one-off
The launch of a new book gives a writer the chance to say:
“I’m committed to my trade and here’s what else I’ve got to say.”
Everyone has a book in them goes the phrase, but showing that writing a novel wasn’t just something to tick off your bucket list before you move on sends an important message to readers who might invest in you for the long haul.
As with the “second album problem”, and because you’re always learning and improving as a writer, you will want your “back catalogue” to reflect well alongside your newest “masterpiece”.
This motivates me to deal with the mental snag list my first book has become.
The case for the prosecution
The explosion of editing tools, online courses, YouTube tutorials and the ease of publishing and re-publishing makes correcting your work easier than ever. But don’t forget an old maxim:
Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should
Reason 1: Accept you grow and develop
Everyone’s first book is a little like losing your virginity. You’re desperate to get it done but chances are it won’t be your best effort.
This first creation also reflects a point in time and your writing maturity at that stage of learning your trade. Is it such a bad thing it’s not perfect? Shouldn’t we celebrate how much better your next work will then be?
Reason 2: It’s just one more thing I’ve got to do in cracking it as an author
Researching, planning, writing, re-drafting, editing, re-writing, publishing, marketing. And repeat.
The to-do list for the writer is never-ending. Wouldn’t it be better to focus on your current project, get it polished to a superior state than the first novel, and bask in knowing you’ve written not one, but two books?
Is the need to re-edit just a symptom of procrastinating over completing my current project and an unnecessary distraction?
Reason 3: You can’t change the past, even if Orwell did
George Orwell’s dystopian masterpiece, 1984, has this theme central to much of his story.
“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
The fact remains, even if I resolve every stylistic and grammatical error in my debut novel, I can’t “control the past” and change the Amazon reviews identifying my early shortcomings as an author and editor. They will live forever in cyberspace.
We all know there are going to errors in our work, and more than likely in our debut creations. Perhaps we just need to accept these and move on and stop obsessing in our quest for perfection.
The balance of probability
If you were the juror weighing the evidence in this case, which direction would your verdict lean? As a writer, you need to do whatever feels right for you.
My rational head knows the prosecution has a strong case, but my emotional writer’s head feels the scales pull towards the defence. Will that be the right decision? Only time will tell.
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