Blogger: Michelle Ule
Sitting in for Mary Keeley who is visiting a publisher today
In the interest of being a more efficient writer, have you considered repurposing already completed work into something else?
Rachelle Gardner was the first person I heard discussing this idea, and at first I, a purist, couldn’t imagine reusing something I’d already written.
But, life got in the way and before I knew it, I was hunting for ways to repurpose my work.
Here are some suggestions
Gather blog posts you’ve written on a common subject and put them into an ebook.
I’ve done that several times and have been pleased with the result.
When I spoke on prayer in October, I combined the six posts I’d written on the subject into a 28-page booklet.
I’ve just done the same thing for Advent.
(How to make blog posts into a simple ebook? Revise them carefully, removing anything that may be under someone else’s copyright (like a photography), and watch the formatting. Save the manuscript as a PDF. You can email it that way)
If you’re stuck on a blog topic, consider using a page of your current project and ask for responses.
I wrote a blog post one time asking folks if I should kill a particular passage I adored in my manuscript.
I didn’t get a lot of advice on the post, but several people wrote me an email with suggestions.
I’ve used photos I took on vacation as jumping off points for a blog post.
Lion Hunting in Europe, anyone?
How about A Walk in Avtar’s Brooklyn?
You could post the first (short) chapter to your book?
I even dug out the original first chapter to my first novella, The Dogtrot Christmas, and posted it, explaining why it didn’t work for the novella I ultimately wrote.
I’ve written short stories as gifts.
I’ve turned Bible studies into blog posts.
I’ve adapted a lot of my research into blog posts–whether it pertained to my current project or not.
After all, there are only seven main plots anyway, right?
What ways have you repurposed your work?
Tweetables
Suggestions for blog repurposing. Click to Tweet
Repurposing blog posts into something else–or vice versa. Click to Tweet
Since this is Advent, you might be interested in my latest repurposing project, a series of blog posts I wrote last Christmas:
Another Look at the Advent Stories.
I’m giving it away to people who sign up for my newsletter (http://eepurl.com/2l7F9), but I’d be happy to send a copy to anyone who comments on this post and asks for one.
Offer ends tomorrow, Friday, December 4, 2015 at midnight, PST. Merry Christmas!
I haven’t repurposed any of my writing yet, but I am intrigued by this. Thank you for the post, Michelle! I especially like the idea of writing short stories as gifts. Talk about a homemade present. 🙂
I did it the first time years ago. My then-boyfriend repaired something and when my mom asked him what she should pay him, he said, “Michelle should write me a short story.”
OK. But I needed a prompt. I asked my father for a title and he threw out, “The Creature that Ate Bakersfield.”
Oh, yeah, great title.
But I wrote the novella, my father laughed, the boyfriend was happy and he married me, so SCORE! 🙂
I’ve also given away lots of copies of something I wrote once about being the mother of boys, to new moms. It’s easy to print out and tie in with the gift. Oh, and one about being married to an engineer. That’s ALWAYS popular with hapless spouses . . . 🙂
Thank you for sharing, Michelle! I appreciate it. 🙂
Interesting post, Michelle. I haven’t tried repurposing anything, but I have had a couple people mention that they thought I should create an ebook with my blogposts.
For someone who’s pre-dubbed, is it wise to self-publish something? The thought behind my question is is a writer considered “published” once they do this?
You’ve got me thinking this morning. 🙂
It would depend, Jeanne, of course.
Take my case. I’m not writing a book about prayer and so putting together an ebook on prayer won’t even appear in the proposal.
If I wrote, say, on something pertinent to a nonfiction piece and SOLD it on Amazon, say, that would be a different ballgame.
I’m just putting together booklets.
I have ideas to someday publish a series of contemporary novels I’ve written that need work. I’d offer them first to publishers and if they didn’t sell, I’ll release them as my own ebooks. That then puts me into territory that may be of interest, but may not be pertinent depending on what I’m pitching to a publisher.
So, because I have published five historical novellas and one outlier Navy SEAL novel, it might come up, but it doesn’t have to unless I’m trying to sell them.
Indie writers could answer this better than I can. I’m not in that spot, yet.
Thanks, Michelle. This helps.
I think that’s a great idea, Michelle, especially during busy seasons of life. And you know how with Scripture, you can read a verse, and it might mean something different, touch your heart in a different way, or help you in a different way according to your season of life … according to how God needs to reach you, change you, love you. We can do the same with our works … take a piece, snippet of a story, and go at it from another angle. I had a young girl in Sunday school once ask something like, “Why did God make that happen in the Bible?” I said, “Well, it’s like writing a novel. There are a hundred ways you could go with your story, but you choose the one on your heart.” So maybe we can take a piece of work and go the other hundredth way. 🙂 And thank you for these suggestions … so helpful through this busy month.
Happy to help and you’re right, Scripture will speak–somehow–all the time.
Absolutely! The “Dying Spouse” series on my blog – which will hit 90 posts tonight – will get turned into an ebook; or, perhaps, a TradPub if it’s worth showing to an agent. There is also a time element, so I don’t know.
* It’s a hard process; I have an offer of help (and could NOT do this alone), but need to organize things in my mind before imposing on someone’s time. While putting it our as a series of blog posts, with minor edits, has validity and a certain rough charm, I am not sure that is the best way to do this.
* ‘As-is’ has the advantage of letting the reader ‘grow’ with me, and work through the process from a brighter place through a narrowing, darker passage, for that has been the arc of the posts. There’s some topic-hopping along the way, though.
* Organization by topic seems more logical, but could become a bit blander, or not as well sequentially-connected in terms of voice and arc.
* Sorry…didn’t mean to think aloud, but I suppose the above could be valuable in terms of how to approach repurposing to begin with. I’ll therefore leave it; not really up to trying to delete and write a more cogent response.
* If anyone wants to offer suggestions on titles, there are a couple under consideration –
1) “The Long Goodbye” – sounds maybe too Dashiell Hammett?
2) “Fixin’ to Die” – and in this corner…Mickey Spillane!
3) “Till Death Do Us Part” -which sounds like an ominous teaser for an odious piece of “Nightline” investigative reporting on which I would quickly turn the channel (if I even watched commercial TV).
Well, Andrew, it depends–do you want to use a provocative title to “catch” innocent readers or not? 🙂
BTW, I’ve read his ebook on Christmas and PTSD and it’s excellent if you know anyone who has been stationed overseas or is in a life place where they encounter enough tragedies to struggle. I’ve sent copies to friends.
He’s producing ebooks through Amazon.
I’ll catch ’em any way I can! Is there a literary version of impressment?
* And thanks for the mention of the PTSD book. I do appreciate that.
I like the play off of marriage vows:
“As Death Does Us Part”
“For Better at Its Worst”
Maybe 2+3? “Fixin to Die: Till Death Do Us Part”
I think a chronology that shows your journey, but the ideas are valuable in any format–you are leaving a trail of blessings, Andrew!
And we have a WINNER! “Fixin’ to Die – Till Death Do Us part” is way cool.
* And thank you, Shirlee…the chronology approach does make sense.
I’m really glad Andrew has a sense of humor . . . .
Michelle, when the devil laughs at you, laugh right back…and then kick him in the nether regions.
This is a brilliant way to deal with a busy holiday season, and blogging!!
I may just do the ‘deleted scenes’ thing and build interest while I’m at it.
Thanks Michelle!
Oh, that would be awesome! 🙂
What else will you do with all those outtakes? I’ve got an entire file of them–for each book! 🙂
Michelle, thanks. You have inspired a new angle. My existing series on prayer would lend itself to an e-book. I would love to have more insights. Maybe not here though – up to you. I may just start with having a look at your ebook. Questions that come to mind: (a) is it an amazon book or how did you publish it? (b) I suppose I could just pdf it and attach to my blog for download, how did you do it? What would you recommend? (c) am I not giving away a lot of book-worthy content in so doing? I tend to not fret about giving away content, but this is a bit of a bigger deal and although always protected by copyright, it is still full of ideas worth using in another work. Not sure where/when to draw the line.
First, thanks to all who have commented; we’ve been having technical difficulties with the blog today and this is the first time I’ve been able to get in.
As to your questions, Pete, I just made a PDF and have been sending that out. I haven’t had any complaints. I’ll send you one and you can see.
We did this two years ago when the Pioneer Christmas Collection authors put together a cookbook linked to our book. We had to format it a little differently than a typical manuscript–mostly just making sure the page breaks between recipes were there–but we had a great cover someone made by modifying our book cover.
In that campaign, we sent out the cookbooks through a list on my MailChimp account. No one ever told us they had a problem.
I’ll be doing the same next week with my newsletter. My webmistress/daughter-in-law advised me to tell people to right click and save the PDF document for convenience. I put it into Ibooks on my Ipad without any trouble at all.
Ebooks obviously can be done through Amazon–that’s what Andrew has done–but I don’t have time to work through it all this week so I’m just doing it the “easy” less professional way right now.
You could be giving away book-worthy content. Only you can assess that. I’m not writing on prayer nor advent in my “regular” work, so I don’t see it’s a problem for me.
On another note, I have written 22 blog posts about Oswald Chambers–which get read on the order of 20-30 readers a day. I’ve put together a collection of those posts but the photos do not belong to me and while I requested permission from the owner (DIscovery House through Wheaton), it did not come–even though I’m willing to give away the ebook version of those posts.
Some of the Chambers photos are in the public domain, and I can use all my own photos–taken at his Bible Training College in London, for example–but they aren’t really what people want to see. So, I’m still on the fence with that, coupled with the fact I quote books in the posts and I would need to get permission from the authors to use their quotes. Certainly any quotes from My Utmost for His Highest.
So, that’s on hold. Maybe in the future I can do it.
Best wishes.
Hmmm…I used some of the research from a huge historical/Biblical novel that I wrote (and am still revising) twelve years ago in a magazine article. Three years after writing the magazine piece I got a message on my phone that Clubhouse magazine wanted to buy it! It had been so long that I’d had to shut down that e-mail account due to spam and almost didn’t get that acceptance. So yes, some of my hours and hours and hours of research did get put to good use!
I’m glad to hear that, and how wonderful you could reuse all that research!
My husband would be cheering you on and pointing at me! 🙂
At the moment the only person getting the Advent PDF is Peter.
No worries or pressure, I just need to know if you want a copy.
Yes, Michelle, I would like a copy–thank you very much (for the Advent PDF and the ideas here today).
I missed this. I’d like a copy of the PDF. 🙂
I would like a copy of the Advent PDF, Michelle. Your post has me imagining all sorts of re-uses for my writing. Thanks!
I’d love a copy, too, Michelle.
My long-ago Bible study and military wife pal, Karen Whiting, couldn’t get on to the blog this morning and sent this response. Karen is superb at this type of thing:
I repurpose things into articles and books too. When I had no luck selling an advent article I turned it into a children’s play and sold it in two weeks-later I did sell the article. Now some of that will be part of an upcoming book.
I am seriously considering repurposing my rejected manuscript into something totally new. I almost have the energy to try but I was wondering if you had any tips on how to do that successfully?
I haven’t done that, Jen. It depends, of course, what type of manuscript it is and what your ultimate goal is.
I, of course, am NOT an agent; I just work for one, and am a “regular” writer like everyone else.
Before you doing anything with an aim to making money, you should have it professionally edited/appraised. You want your best work out there for the world to see.
If it’s a novel and you don’t care if you make any money, consider these thoughts:
If you just want it read, you could break it up and post it as a serial on your website. This hopefully, would whet the appetite of readers for the next book you write–but you’re making it a sacrificial lamb, as it were, for the good of your future writing career.
If you’re hoping to sell it someday, it’s probably not wise to self publish and sell it out of the back of your car. The Shack gained traction that way, but that was some time ago and it’s a gamble. Generally speaking agents won’t represent and publishers won’t publish a book that has been self-published and is now looking for a publisher–unless, of course, it’s already sold a gazillion copies. (In which case, you’re better off selling it yourself).
If it’s say, Christian living subject matter, perhaps you could break it up into smaller chunks of either ebooks or perhaps individual Bible studies which might sell.
I’ve written a spiritual memoir that has been rejected a number of times. I love it and the stories and still think it has merit, but I’m not famous nor do I have a terrible story of redemption to tell (thanks be to God, who wants to put their family through hell just to sell a book?). I’ve been tempted to take those stories and them up as blog posts, but they go together as a full sweep of the memoir so nicely, I’m loathe to do it.
So, I’m holding on. I could break up some of those stories and sell them, perhaps–this is wishful thinking–to Guideposts, but for a variety of reasons, I haven’t pursued that. (Well, because Guideposts owns the rights forever and I still like these stories as a united whole).
I don’t know if this helps or not. Best wishes.
Great ideas, Michelle. Sometimes we miss the obvious – reusing (not verbatim) ideas we’ve used before. I do this all the time, but I make sure there’s enough of a fresh twist that any cross-over readers I may have don’t feel like they’re getting leftovers. I write a column for the daily newspaper here, my own blog, and several guest-blogger posts. I’ve also sold many articles to national magazines, and repurposing an idea to a new audience is a great exercise.
That actually was my lead off point, but last night I started reading Jon Ronson’s So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, and his lead story was about a man named Jonah Lehrer who was public shamed for plagiarism and destroyed because he repurposed some of his earlier work into later articles.
I was taken aback, but then in discussing it, realized he was being paid for original work and reusing already published work–which is a little different than me reusing a blog I wrote and turning into a non-paid guest blog for someone else.
I’ve adapted blog posts numerous times between my own and guest gigs. Fortunately, or not, I didn’t make any money and so the ethics were clean.
If you’re a journalist, what do you think? 🙂
Journalistically, if you sell first rights only, you can sell the same article again, but you wouldn’t want to sell it in the same market. If I sell a story to American Cowboy magazine, I don’t want to sell the same piece to Western Horseman because they reach the same market. That’s also a good way to kill your chances of a future story with that magazine. But it is possible to take information/ideas and rework them into a similar but different piece. Freelance writers do this all the time. Blog posts are the easiest to repurpose because we don’t get paid for them. I’m sure someone out there somewhere does, but it ain’t me. However, I’ve found when I rewrite something, I always have ‘fresh manna’ to apply for that piece.
Great ideas, Michelle, and adaptable, too. Thanks.
Inspired idea, Michelle–thanks!
Every blog post I write is now with the idea that I could one day repurpose it. Now I just need to find the time to start doing so!
These are really helpful suggestions, Michelle. Think I’ll give this some thought. Thanks!