Should I "rewrite" my last book for trade?

Question: Everyone tells me the topic of my LAST book would have been great for a trade press. But I published it with a small university press instead, and wrote it as an academic monograph. Should I now “rewrite” the book and try to get an agent and big trade publisher interested? Is that even allowed?

I come across this all the time.

And it kind of breaks my heart a little every time I see it.

I meet someone whose last book was about Elon Musk, or Chinese nationalism in Taiwan, or sex after 50, or the blood feuds of the Roman Empire or…. You get the idea. Something of great interest to the general public. But they published it with the University of Saskatchewan Press and wrote it in a highly theoretical, highly academic register, and it was published with a list price of $127 and no one ever heard of it.

And now they’re asking themselves an obvious question: “Should I rewrite it for a popular audience?”

The answer to this question, as always, is…. Maybe.

The first thing to understand about this dilemma is that it has both practical/logistical as well as emotional/intellectual dimensions.

But before we dive into answering the question, let’s consider WHY you’re in this situation in the first place. (And fair warning — this might make for uncomfortable reading).

If you find yourself in this situation, it’s usually for one of the following four reasons:

(1) you were a very junior scholar when you wrote that book, and you simply had “no choice” but to write it as a monograph.

(2) you were not that junior, but you simply “weren’t thinking” in this way at the time, because you were so heavily conditioned to think in terms of academic output, scholarly contribution, etc. (And now you’re kind of regretting it).

(3) you wanted to publish it as a trade book, but had no idea how to go about doing that, and were slightly intimidated or confused by the process — so you made the decision to just go with “what was familiar and achievable”. (And now you’re kind of regretting it).
(4) you were told by the academic publisher that they would treat your book as part of their “trade list” or make a “strong push” to reach a wider audience — and you believed them. (And now you’re kind of regretting it).

In every single one of these cases, you made a pragmatic, reasonable decision that “made sense at the time”. But in every single one of these cases, you actually did have a choice. And you made the SAFE choice.

Now, don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with being safe. Safety is a great thing. It soothes us and sometimes helps us get through challenging, stressful times. (Which is pretty much all the time, if you’re a career academic, right?)

But safety is your greatest enemy when it comes to branching away from academia and speaking to a wider public. If this is your goal, and you’re serious about it, then you HAVE to embrace risk and discomfort, at least to some degree. Let me explain….

In Case (1) above — the junior scholar who simply “had no choice” but to publish an academic monograph…. I am reminded of a good friend of mine who, while finishing up her PhD many years ago, managed to get a book published by a major New York trade press — a moving, evocative collection of stories based on her fieldwork. YES, her colleagues were scathing. YES, there are people in her field to this day who still treat her like she’s not a “serious” scholar. But today, she has an endowed chair at a very prominent university, has won a bunch of awards and published several more books — both academic and trade — and MOST of her colleagues thinking she’s f**king brilliant.

Same lesson can be drawn from Case (2) — the mid-career scholar who “just wasn’t thinking that way at the time”. I actually have a lot of sympathy with this one, because I know how powerful academic conditioning can be. But again, this is a CHOICE. And it’s a safe one.

Case (3) is something I’ve seen again and again. The scholar who really “wants” to do a trade book — but ends up going with “what’s familiar” because it seems less daunting. Again, I have sympathy with this, because until recently, there wasn’t a lot of good advice out there about making the transition to trade as an academic. (Luckily, today you have Scholars to Storytellers!) But again, it’s the safe choice.

Case (4) is the most frustrating of all — and the most dangerous. Let’s be honest. Academic publishers will tell you everything you want to hear if they want to publish your book. And it’s not that they’re lying to you. It’s just that they know your expectations are low, and that you’ll do back flips over a $7,000 advance and some vague promise of being on their “trade list”.

What do all four of these cases have in common? Yup, you guessed it. They all represent the safe choice. And in our world, the safe choice ALWAYS leads to an academic publishing contract and NEVER to a trade press.

But let’s get back to the original question.

What should you do if you’ve ended up in one of these four situations? What should you do if the topic of your last book was really, really, really good for trade — and now you feel like you “blew it” and are wondering if you should “rewrite” it for trade?

Again, there’s a practical and an emotional answer to this question.

Let’s start with the practical.

No, you can’t just write the same book (or almost the same book) and publish it for trade. There are basic copyright reasons for this, which I’m sure most of you understand.

BUT — yes, you can still “rewrite” it. As long as it’s substantively different in its prose, its structure and its overall feel, there is absolutely no issue with copyright. Just don’t copy and paste large chunks of text from your last book, and you should be fine.

Now for the emotional / intellectual side to this question.

This, as you might imagine, is more complex. Because it comes down to a simple question you have to ask yourself: “Do I really want to write the same book again?”

The answer, for most people, is no.

Most human beings, after they’ve spent several years of their lives writing a book, have very little desire to spend several more years writing more or less the same book all over again, just in different words.

But notice that I said, “most”.

There is a percentage of people who can be perfectly happy doing that.

And yes, there are ways to do this that make the book just different enough that it keeps your interest.

But this is the key. You really do have to re-think the book in some way. Re-conceptualize it. Frame it a different way, put a different spin on it, or perhaps re-visit your conclusions. Even better — maybe you’ve come across a new trove of evidence since you wrote the book, and it’s made you look at the subject in a slightly different way. Or a cool and interesting new character who will really bring the story to life.

Or maybe — just maybe — you genuinely relish the challenge of simply “rewriting” what you wrote in a more enjoyable, accessible, storytelling kind of way?

That’s totally legit!

So the bottom line here? I’ve found that in the vast majority of cases, most people won’t choose to “rewrite” their last monograph as a trade book. Though certainly there are exceptions.

But then — if you’ve made it this far — this should make you sit up and think.

If you’re about to embark on your next book project, stop what you’re doing and really ask yourself: “Do I want this to be an academic book or a trade book?” Because this will fundamentally determine how you approach the book — from the research, to the questions you’re asking, to the writing.

And you don’t want to find yourself, years from now, thinking, “damn, that was a great topic, I really should have written it for trade.”

So if you’re not sure, stop everything you’re doing and really THINK about this.

Because the pain of this extra step will always be less than the pain of regret.