March 28, 2024

Repurpose and Conquer

In preparation for Write Your Book in Six Months, I’m doing my own challenge—writing my own book in six months, with the goal of being finished by July 1. And has it ever been a challenge!

There are a million reasons it’s hard to write, a hundred priorities that take precedent over the day-to-day writing, and more than enough excuses as to why writers don’t stay on track of their writing goals. Much more rare, and therefore more valuable and important, are the strategies that keep us going.

A strategy I’ve been relying on all month as I struggle to keep up with the pace I’ve set for myself is repurposing. Repurposing content is common enough. All of us should be in the practice of reusing blog posts, especially, to create Facebook posts and Tweets. If and when someone asks you to guest post, repurposing is a good idea. Take something you’ve already written and modify it just a bit to bring it up to speed or to make sure it’s a good fit for your target readership.

I have four years worth of newsletters, and a lot of it is inspirational and right in line with what I’m writing for my book. I’m working to finish the chapter about mindsets now, and god knows I’ve written post after post about the writing mindset. Going back and reading through old content has been a valuable exercise. I’m astounded by how much I’ve actually written, and how much of it is usable for my book. Some of it’s so old that the links to my site aren’t even active. So why not bring it up to speed, give it some oxygen, breathe new life into it.

It’s a good strategy, and one that anyone with preexisting content should be capitalizing on. Don’t think it’s cheating. You still have to do the work of creating transitions and making sure the old content fits into your new project. But you can save yourself some time and get a leg up if you give yourself permission to repurpose.

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