Should you edit a novel you don't think is commercially viable?

I have a Christmas novel that I know I can't get an agent with, and *maybe* could sell if I did well with another novel, but I don't count on it. I wrote it for me.

I edited it for me, as well.

Hapax Legomenon said:

I have recently finished a rough draft of a novel but I don't think anyone will want to buy it. Should I bother editing it, or should I spend my time on something that may be more commercial?

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I think it really depends on where you are in your writing career and in your development/mastery of the craft.

If you're a NYT bestseller, then....no. Go write another novel that will keep your career at its peak. Unless, of course, this novel is really really dear to your heart. In that case, edit it and self publish it. Not all of your fans will like it, but some will probably think it's your best work ever.

If you're teetering on the brink of getting an agent/publishing contract, and your writing is pretty damned fine and your editing skills are well developed and you just need to hit the right agent on the right day with the right concept, then....no. Go write a more commercially viable novel that will let you break in. This one will be waiting for you when you have time to come back to it.

If you are fairly new to writing and are still learning about sentence structure and point-of-view and show-don't-tell and pacing and characterisation and dialogue tags, then yes, it'll probably be a really useful learning experience. If you consider this novel to be a practice run and not something you'd ever publish, it'll be a lot easier to hack and slash and chop and change, and you'll learn a lot about editing that way.

Note that this is all head, not heart, advice. I'm a very practical person. But "write what you love" and "write what you want to read" is probably the best advice, so take mine with a big ol' box of salt.

Well, since we don't have a crystal ball, you'll have to give us a bit more info then!

Mr Flibble said:

*if it's dinosaur porn you'll probably have to self pub Nothing wrong with that, if it fits what you want.

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Yeah, but you'll have some stiff (heh, pun intended) competition!

It certainly garners you some sidesplitting reviews!

Taylor Harbin said:

Never chase the market.

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True enough. The market you see in the bookstore is the market that was acquired three to five years prior.

I was assuming the OP knew the book was not marketable because it contained taboos or illegal material (eg scat or child sex), infringed copyright (eg fanfic), or was super-super niche market (lesbian romance with no HEA). But I may well have misunderstood, and if so my apologies!

jjdebenedictis said:

If your sole criteria for judging whether the act of writing is worth your time is whether or not it produces a salable book, then no.

If you write for other reasons too, then maybe yes.

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Yep, that's a really concise way of stating it. There's no right or wrong, just what's right for the individual author.

Sage said:

I have a Christmas novel that I know I can't get an agent with, and *maybe* could sell if I did well with another novel, but I don't count on it. I wrote it for me.

I edited it for me, as well.

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Just to add to this. I also had a novel that I knew didn't meet the "it doesn't need to end happily, but it does need an element of hope" suggestion for YA novels, and the hopeless ending was the only thing I liked about it. And because I didn't really like the rest, I didn't bother editing it.

Here's how I see your options:

- You love it, and so you edit it because even if you can never sell it, you want to have the book that's perfect for you, and every time you reread it, you'll be satisfied with what you're reading.

- You love it, and you want everyone to read it, so you revise it. It may be a hard sell or you may be misgauging the marketability of it or you may just not ever sell it, but at least you tried.

- You love it, but you know you have to seriously change it to be marketable, which you're willing to do because you have to see it on the shelves.

- You love it, and will enjoy it just the way it is, and have no desire to publish or change it, so you don't do anything.

- You don't love it, but you really want to see a book on the shelves and you think this might still be your best candidate so far, so you revise it and hope for the best.

- You don't love it and changing it will be very hard, and you don't want to bother with that amount of work on this particular novel, so you don't revise it.

- You don't love it and believe it will never be marketable, so you don't see why you should try

I can't tell you which of these is better for you. You do not need our permission to choose not to revise your novel or to choose to revise it. Pick the path that feels right to you for this novel.