I may have written about this in the past, or a similar question like, ‘how much editing is too much?’ but I’m revisiting it anyway, and focusing on whether to edit a story that’s already published, because I’m confronting that dilemma in real time.
I want to bring the Hartington trilogy out in paperback soon-ish. Probably early next year, before I get bogged down in The Next Move, which is not a book, only the story of my life at the moment. The Hartington books are space regency, about five years old, and written when I was a less experienced writer and not braining well d/t not enough oxygen. Turns out there’s less air at high altitude- who knew?
So the Hartington books were a decent example of my ability when I brought them out, but I’ve improved since then. The simple/easy/lazy course of action is to reformat the ebook with barely a glance through the text to find any lingering typos, and call it good. The complex/difficult/effort-intense course is to dive in and edit them up to my current standard, and hope I don’t wreck them in the process.
There’s also a school of thought that would scrap the idea entirely, because so many more people read ebooks than paperbacks that it’s barely worth the effort of bringing out a paper version. That carries less weight with me, personally, because I can’t stand reading ebooks, and will reread my paper copies over and over if it’s a choice between paper and digital. Most readers aren’t like that, and factoring that in is the difference between personal choices and career moves.
I don’t think there’s ever been a writer, artist, or creator of any kind who doesn’t cringe when he looks at his early work. Even when the good bones are there, or there’s a turn of phrase that makes his heart sing, there’s still something awkward about measuring the gap between then and now. That gap is why I don’t usually update my books in any format; I try to forget about them as much as possible, and there’s always new stories to draw my attention. But there’s something to be said for having a nice, professional-looking product available to customers, even if making it nice takes longer than I’d hoped.
The biggest pitfall of editing is that it’s easy to make it a perpetual cycle, continually trying to make the book better while new works stagnate. I’m falling into that problem with the time-travel story and I don’t want to do it with another series.
Having gone back and forth way too much in my mind, I’ll probably end up skimming the Hartington books for typos, adding a sentence here and there if it’s desperately needed, and cringing a lot at my younger self’s relative lack of skill and taste. Then with any luck, I’ll get the books out in paperback, and not have to worry about them anymore.
Writers of the audience- how do you solve the problem of editing new editions and formats? What’s the longest elapsed time between bringing out different formats of your books?
Readers of the audience- do you buy multiple versions of the same book? Under what circumstances? Do you prefer to see that the author is keeping up with their stories, or should they leave the darned books alone?
Mad Genius Club 
14 responses to “To Edit or Not to Edit?”
Hi. I fall into the avid reader category.
I’ll buy multiple formats of the same book (ebook/audio/print) but not multiple versions of the same format. When I really like the author, I’ll get ebook and audio together. For others, I’ll start with ebook and add audio if I liked it enough to reread. I’ll get print only for the really special stories.
About editing – of course, fixing typos, grammar, etc. is appreciated. But then leave it alone! Unless you are taking a short story or novella and expanding it to a novel, then by all means, give me more. But I really don’t like it when the story changes, even seemingly small details. I think that matters more for ebooks, because I can’t get the original back. And in my reader mindset, the original is the REAL story. Even if it wasn’t perfect, when I reread it, that’s what I want and expect.
Once I turn a book lose in the wind, I don’t look at it again unless I need details for a sequel. That is until I change publishers… I recently (for values of recent) changed publishers, and they want to re release my older John Fisher novels, before releasing my new one.
Well, not going to lie, Harvest of Evil was my first book ever, it’s over ten years old and the editor was… Well lets just say there’s a reason I changed publishers.
So the new publisher is re editing everything, and there are some changes being made. Not an entire rewrite, but not just fixing editorial mistakes, adding detail where appropriate, doing a better job of showing vice telling…
That’s the only reason I would edit an already published piece.
With the fanfic thing the Margret Ball graciously edited for me, there was one short I had to significantly edit after it went up.
The one hard rule I had for that was: no retcons. Any event that happened, happened as it happened and could not change.
Because it is way less bothering to a reader to go back and find out that the author meant ‘pudding’ in the English Christmas pudding (i.e. fruitcake) and that why they were talking about the crumb, than it is to find in the new version they were going to a dance instead of a bakeoff.
I prefer books I can hold in my hand.
Not everyone does!
However, the main reason for physical books is discoverability in all its phases. If you stick to eBook only, you can’t participate in library book events, bookstore signings, or any other in the real-world program.
Will you sell books? Not many but you do sell some and each person you meet has never heard of you.
Here’s where the afterlife of your physical book comes in. That reader may enjoy your book and then pass it along. To the used bookstore, to the breakroom at work, to the library sale, the little free library, etc., etc.
Because it’s a physical book, it has a long lifespan. You do not know who will see that copy you sold three years ago. That copy moved on and is now in someone else’s hands.
That may not be enough to go to the trouble of rewriting and reformatting The Hartington Trilogy. Which I bought as eBooks and enjoyed! But your mileage may vary.
The afterlife of the book is an important aspect that I tend to overlook- oops! Which is mildly ironic because I buy a lot of my dead-tree books in thrift stores.
I’ve discovered authors I’d never heard of because I picked up their book at a Little Free Library or at the thrift shop. That second life can sell a book to a new reader.
There are some things I will change in a published book (independent of format) — outright typo sorts of error, and the lists of published works. When I reread one of my own works and discover a typo, I update my copies of the originals (and any sets that contain them) without republishing them (yet). Then, when I release a new work, I update the lists of published works for all the published books, and republish them. Since I mostly do long form, the volume isn’t all that high.
But I never tinker with plot elements, or even diction (e.g., “just the right word”) — just the actual errors (typos, spelling, etc.). Whatever I said in the story… that stands.
I’m going through and doing typo/double word/punctuation error editing on my hubby’s first novel which was published about 10 years ago. I also have a new cover for it. We’ve both learned a lot since then. But, no re-writing other elements.
I prefer dead-tree editions.
And once I kick a book out into the wild, it’s on its own.
In a book I really liked the author went back at some point and changed the in-universe name of a gun manufacturer. Since I had an ebook, this change suddenly appeared in my copy, and I have to say I didn’t like it. You aren’t facing quite the same thing with paper but people who have read the book will notice if you change things.
in general, I agree with light editing.
However I think the Hartingdon trilogy could really benefit from a substantial rewrite and integrating the books into one longer book – and probably a new name. (BTW, a number of Raymond Chandler’s novels are rewritten integrations of his pulp pieces).
I don’t know if this would be worth the effort.
The series is definitely a trilogy, not one book. Because each POV character goes on a vastly different journey from the other siblings’, combining them all would be mood whiplash in the extreme.
Louis L’Amour would often re-write a short story or novella into a full length novel with a new name. I always enjoyed reading both versions.
Thought I’d commented on this one, but I guess not. For me it comes down to how pressing my other writing projects are. The Ancestors of Jaiya series has been waiting on me for a reread and typo cleanup for years, but somehow something else always seems more urgent. Reworking a shorter book or storyline into something longer and more involved seems, from what I’ve read about other writers’ processes, to be something done by very prolific people trying to earn a living by their writing.
On the subject of dead tree books: one of the guides to self-publishing that I read early on, argued for doing a print version just because it made the lower price of the e-book look better by comparison. I don’t know if that’s still the case, but I do try to do print versions of stuff.