Releasing edited older works - Questions from the Readers

Yesterday -- sometime before I finished my book -- I polled individuals on twitter on what they wanted to see written about for this blog. There was a very quick response.

Today, I am going to cover the very interesting subject of releasing a new version of an old novel. By this, I mean this: a writer dislikes a book they once wrote and published. They go back and rewrite or do massive edits to it and release it again.

The subject came up as one mouse (Hi Squeecha!) noticed that an author had done exactly this and had left both copies for sale.

From a personal point-of-view, I would love to release a new version of an older, crappier work. But, as a reader, I am going to be quite upset if I am expected to buy a second copy of the same book because the author was too lazy to do the job right the first time.

Once you publish, unless you are correcting minor things like a missed spelling-error during typesetting... please don't do this. This is entirely of personal opinion, but if I buy a book, and the author slaps me in the face by releasing a new version of it because they didn't do a thorough job of writing it the first time, well... this will upset me as a reader.

I could never do that to my audience as a writer.

Sure, I will improve my writing skills as I write, but I find this sort of behavior as the ultimate insult. If I buy a book, I buy it because I want to read it. If you release a new copy of the book -- where the story has been rewritten or massively changed -- I will feel like I have been ripped off.

The only way I think I could accept this is if I were offered a free copy of the new version to read. This is something I could accept, as it would show that the author wanted to give me the best story.

If I'm expected to pay for them correcting their mistakes or changing the story, I would be very, very upset. To the point I wouldn't purchase books from this author again.

I can't put a logical explanation to this. It is entirely my opinion, and there are no studies or logic to it.

Yes, I know, I usually post factual sorts of things, but I finished my book last night before bed. I'm allowed. (But just for today.)

There isn't much more that I can say on the subject than that.

More Questions from The Reader to come! If you have a question you want to ask, @rebeccablain on twitter with it and it might show up here!