Rewriting Your Book: Is it Worth It?

When you are in the process of writing a book, you may write a first draft, a second draft, and possibly many more drafts until you are satisfied that it is ready to be published. In this case, rewriting a book is most definitely a great idea because you want to make sure that your book has no spelling or grammatical mistakes, that it is formatted correctly, and that the images will be displayed clearly. You also want to ensure that your readers will understand and enjoy your book when it is published.

But when your book is already published, is it a good idea to rewrite it? You may have published a book five years ago and you may be considering rewriting it because you have discovered new information and developments that you believe would benefit your readers if you include them in your book. Or maybe you’ve grown and improved as a writer and believe that you can write the book better. So is it worth it to rewrite your book, or would it be more beneficial to write a new book?

What is the benefit of rewriting a book?

I have written over 15 books and I rewrote four of them:

My reason for rewriting the above books is because I felt that some of the information in them was out of date, the book covers looked amateurish, and I had made some formatting mistakes when I first published those books and I wanted to correct them.

One of the benefits of writing and publishing a book is that it can continue to earn money years after writing. But as the world changes, such as in technology, business, and health, your book may become out of date. As a result, your book may start to lose sales because it is no longer relevant.

One of the benefits of rewriting a book is that you can include up-to-date information so that the book becomes relevant again. It also helps to boost sales of your book if at some point sales were very low.

For example, I wrote a book on how to use WordPress to create a mobile-friendly website. WordPress is always updating to newer versions, so rewriting the book featuring updated information on how to use the website designing software really helped my readers. It also increased sales as the new version had more up-to-date information on how to design a mobile-friendly website with WordPress.

Therefore, it is beneficial to rewrite your book to add more up-to-date information to boost sales.

How many times should you rewrite your book?

This is a question that only you, the author, can answer. I rewrote my WordPress book about three times because the information in it became obsolete every year WordPress was updated. I also wrote a newer version of my online business book because I knew that I could write it better.

But if I have to be honest, I don’t think I would rewrite The Beginner’s Guide to WordPress or How to Start an Online Business. I would rather write a brand new book instead. I would rather do my research and gather fresh new ideas than go over old ones and try to figure out what should be changed and what should stay the same.

So my advice to you is if you feel that some of the content in your book needs to be changed, go ahead and rewrite your book as many times as you think it is needed. If you feel that you can make improvements to your book after it’s been published, then go ahead and do it.

When should you rewrite a book?

You can rewrite your book anytime you want to. What I love about self-publishing is the control I have over the content, design, and format of my books. And publishing online makes it very easy to make changes to my books if I need to. So I can rewrite my book whenever I feel the need to do it.

You can rewrite your book before it is published, immediately after it’s published, a year later, five years later, or ten years later. If you are a self-published author and feel that you could improve what you wrote in your book, you should rewrite it whenever possible.

READ MORE:

Self-Publishing Checklist for Authors

Five Mistakes to Avoid Before You Publish Your Manuscript

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