In January 2022, I re-edited my first novel, Stone of Fire, which I started during NaNoWriMo in 2009 and published in April 2011. In this episode, I explain why and how I re-edited the book, as well as some lessons learned from revisiting my writer self of over a decade ago.
This episode includes:
- Why I decided to rewrite when so much advice says ‘never go back’
- How Stone of Fire developed from 2011 to 2022
- My re-writing process
- Practicalities of publishing a new edition
- Craft notes from rewriting, including character, pacing, grammar and sentence structure, author voice, dialogue, and more
- Was it worth it?!
There’s nothing really wrong with the book. As I write this, Stone of Fire has 1374 reviews on Amazon US with a 4.1 star average (and many more reviews on other stores and platforms) so clearly, readers enjoy it.
But I know I can improve it.
Stone of Fire was my first novel — but it’s also the first in my 12-book ARKANE action-adventure thriller series. It’s my permafree first in series ebook, the one I repeatedly put ads on to bring readers into my writing. It’s pretty important for my fiction marketing efforts!
Morgan Sierra, the main character of my ARKANE series, is also my alter-ego. Sure, she’s an ex-Israeli military psychologist, Oxford University professor, and Krav Maga expert — but her thoughts are often my own, or at least represent some facet of my personality.
Like me, Morgan is fascinated with religion and travels the world, but of course, I just visit exciting locations, whereas she investigates supernatural mysteries in each one alongside Jake Timber and the rest of the ARKANE team.
The advice from many writing coaches and experts is to leave your old series behind, and write a new one. In this way, you can improve your work without rewriting old books.
But I can’t leave Morgan behind. And neither can my hardcore readers who love the ARKANE series and demand a new one as soon as I deliver the next story!
In Jerusalem for book research! (Is that Morgan or Jo?!)I’ve written other series — my Mapwalker fantasy trilogy, my Brooke & Daniel crime thrillers, and various stand-alone stories. But in terms of action-adventure books, I’m invested in Morgan and the ARKANE team.
The ARKANE series appeals to fans of James Rollins’ Sigma series, Steve Berry’s Cotton Malone books, Lincoln & Child’s Pendergast, and thrillers by Greig Beck, Matthew Reilly, Ernest Dempsey, J Robert Kennedy, and R.D. Brady. They are action-adventure/conspiracy thriller with aspects of the supernatural.
I wrote them because I love these kinds of long-running thriller series and always set out to write something for the ‘old me’ who used to read thrillers on the commuter train every weekday to a job I hated.
My writing has improved after almost 13 years and writing over 35 books, as well as taking all kinds of writing classes, reading many thousands more thrillers, and learning my craft. Plus, I’ve worked with professional editors and proofreaders, and now augment my craft with ProWritingAid.
Since I won’t “just start another series,” I decided to rewrite the first three books to bring them up to my current standard.
Importantly, I have not changed the story at all.The plot and characters are the same and if you’ve read the book, you don’t need to re-read it. But as I outline below in the craft section, I have made a lot of changes for pacing, reader flow, character depth, and author voice.
Being an indie author simplifies the technical side of re-editing and re-releasing. I don’t need to ask anyone’s permission for a new edition. I just rewrite, republish, and carry on.
My plan is to rewrite the first three (Stone of Fire, Crypt of Bone, Ark of Blood) because they are linked by the antagonists, and also readers who get to book 4 tend to continue the series, anyway. The read-through is much stronger after they are hooked on Morgan and Jake’s adventures!
I also need to get on with the next book and don’t want to spend any more time on older work, but never say never. Maybe by 2035, I’ll want to rewrite some more!
How Stone of Fire developed from 2009 to 2022I started the story during NaNoWriMo 2009 and joined The Year of the Novel at Queensland Library in Brisbane, Australia, where I lived at the time.
After finishing the draft in 2010, I worked with several professional editors. I self-published Pentecost (as it was originally called) in April 2011. You can find my experience detailed here with some amusingly old videos!
I wrote two more ARKANE novels, Prophecy, and Exodus, all under Joanna Penn.
The original cover for Prophecy by Joanna Penn, which eventually became Crypt of Bone by J.F. Penn!But my early reviews proved a couple of things.
Readers enjoyed the books — they have always had good reviews. But the branding and book titles looked like Christian Fiction, and although the stories are rooted in ecclesiastical history, biblical locations and myth, I am not a Christian.
The ARKANE thrillers are more like Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code in that they skirt the edge of religious myth and history, but are essentially global action-adventure thrillers.
So I needed to figure out how to re-position them.
Most authors struggle with this question of genre and market fit, and I struggled just as much as anyone else.
I also had a few reviews that mentioned my gender, for example, “I can’t believe a woman wrote this.” I’m not going to get into gender politics, but I don’t want my writing to be judged by my name or gender.
So I switched my fiction to J.F. Penn (full story here in A Tale of Two Author Brands) and I started a new website and a new email list.
J.F. Penn in front of the Grand Lodge of EnglandI have never regretted that decision. I love having two author names as it helps me separate aspects of myself as well as my audience. Yes, it’s more work to manage two names, but it helps me switch mindset, and I have almost completely different business plans for the brands.
During those early years, I met with a few agents who were interested in working together, one in the USA, one in the UK. They didn’t work out ultimately, but they helped me with some repositioning and we parted on good terms. (It is not uncommon for authors and agents to part ways. It’s a business relationship and it has to serve both parties).
In 2015, I rebranded the first three books as Stone of Fire, Crypt of Bone, and Ark of Blood. I had new covers designed and also did a light edit of Stone of Fire to add more emotional beats than the original.
12 ARKANE action adventure thrillers by J.F. PennAs I write this in late February 2022, there are now 12 ARKANE thrillers. They can be read as a series or as standalone stories, which is usually true of the kind of thrillers I read, as well as how I write.
Stone of Fire is out in its new re-edited form, but the other two books are still underway. You can get it as a free ebook on the usual stores, or download from my website if you’ve previously downloaded an older version. Check the copyright page says 2022 if you’re unsure which version it is.
Some authors worry about new editions and whether readers will be annoyed. Most readers don’t realize anyway, and the rest rarely care! I’ve never had an issue with re-writing and re-issuing books, whether fiction or non-fiction.
My re-writing processI’ve updated the back matter and typos since 2015 and also reformatted the ebook file with Vellum. Here are my technical steps for re-writing.
Exported .RTF file from Vellum and saved as MS Word .docx
Imported .docx into Scrivener. This became my new master Scrivener file.
Opened ProWritingAid on my desktop and then opened Scrivener within ProWritingAid.
I edited each chapter within ProWritingAid, fixing issues that it flagged, many of which detailed in the craft section below. ProWritingAid has various suggestions for improvement and then an overall score. For most chapters, I was able to take the score from 60% to 90%, an invaluable first step.
Every day I worked on the manuscript, I exported the whole file from Scrivener as an MS Word docx, emailed it to myself and saved on Dropbox.
Once all the chapters were completed, I exported from Scrivener back to MS Word and printed out the full draft.
I edited the manuscript by hand. There was a lot of scribbling and deleting and removing of extraneous info, as detailed in the craft section below.
I updated the master Scrivener file with the hand edits.
I printed it again and edited the manuscript once more, but there were only minor issues this time through.
I ran it through ProWritingAid one more time and then exported to MS Word.
I sent the manuscript to my new editor, Kristen Tate at The Blue Garret. My previous editor/s have moved on over the years and it’s a natural thing to find a new editor over time. Kristen did a great edit with Track Changes on the MS Word with comments, line edits, and she created a new Style Guide which we’ll use going forward.
I went through the MS Word edits and Accepted or Rejected and changed things, then Kristen checked one more time.
I imported the final MS Word .docx into Vellum, formatted and published the ebook, and sent the files to my designer for print formatting. Here's my tutorial on how to format with Vellum (Mac only), and there are other formatting options here.
Practicalities of publishing a new editionI have never used an ebook ISBN for Stone of Fire, so I just uploaded the new edition with updated copyright info on the ebook stores.
I use a date in my file name so I always know when I updated the file last. I’ve updated this file multiple times over the last decade with minor edits and changes to the title, cover, back matter, etc. Updating files is a normal part of the indie author business and including dates in your files can help keep track of when you upload new versions.
I used new ISBNs for the print editions: 978-1-913321-96-3 (paperback); 978-1-913321-97-0 (large print); 978-1-913321-98-7 (hardback).
I unlinked the editions and unpublished them at KDP Print and Ingram Spark, then published new editions and linked them to my author name through author.amazon.com.
Remember, you can never get rid of old print editions completely, as there is a secondhand market. So un-publish the old editions, but be aware that they may still ‘win the buy button' on Amazon, which is a pain! Check the publication date if you want the new version.
The copyright page has all the years that changes were made (more than just a typo), and also Previously Published as Pentecost.
The audiobooks are now out of date, so I have unpublished the first three books and the first boxset, and will consider getting new editions produced later.
I like writing (and editing) in cafes
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