As a blogger and magazine journalist, repurposing work is a concept I’m familiar with—but I don’t always put this strategy to work often enough. When I do, I get my work in front of more potential readers and increase my earning potential, however. That’s why in this nonfiction writing prompt I’d like to encourage you to begin recycling, or reusing, your work.
Get in the habit of looking at everything you produce as content you can repurpose into a new piece of published work. You can recycle a blog post, an article, an e-book, a book, a podcast, a video, a course, or even a social media status update. To do so, you need to change it, freshen it up, add to it, or in some way increase the value of that original content. You also need to make it available to your audience or to a new audience.
Nonfiction Writing Prompt #38: Repurpose Your Work
To complete this nonfiction writing prompt, repurpose one piece of written work into a new piece of work. To achieve this goal, begin by looking over your most recent written work and choosing one piece. You could use recorded work, such as audio or video, but for this particular prompt, start with something simple, such as a blog post, an article or a chapter in a book.
Next, consider how you might repurpose that piece of writing. For ideas, read this post. Also determine where you might publish it.
- Is there a blog where you might submit a guest post created from a post you published on your blog?
- Is there another magazine that would publish your article if you slant it toward a different audience?
- Could you publish an excerpt from your book on a website or in a publication if you added an intro or conclusion targeted to that market?
Now, rewrite, revise, expand, or in some way change and enhance your original piece.
Finally, submit your finished content—your repurposed work—somewhere new! Doing so gives you visibility and possibly a new paycheck.
I’d love to hear how you repurposed your work and if it garnered you more or new readers or a chance to earn additional. Leave me a comment.
For more information on how to repurpose your work, join the NFWU. When you do, you’ll receive the December Nonfiction Writers’ University (NFWU) homework assignment, which contains a more in-depth look at and prompt on this topic. Plus, you’ll have access to the growing archive (11 months) of past homework assignments and NFWU event recordings as well as recordings of and access to live coaching and introductory gifts worth more than the membership (well over $100 value)! Members also get additional bonuses during the year.
Next NFWU event: FREE teleseminar on 1/20 at 4 pm PT: Kick-Starting Your Memoir with author and founder of the National Association of Memoir Writers Linda Joy Myers. Register here. (No membership required.)
To find out more about or to join the NFWU at the low introductory rate or with a buy-on-get-one-free yearly membership offer, click here. (Hurry…the introductory rate ends 1/31/14).
I tend to assume people can read my mind…
So my manuscripts are a little brief…
Nonfiction…
Was thinking about teaching an online course to better explain the books…
Took a shorter cut, & used a free site called Tildee to write a tutorial or two…
Turns out people really “got” that step by step approach…
Copied the 2 tutorials into Pages, wrote an intro, added a Table of Contents, enrolled it in KDP select & it’s on for free today till Sunday-& it is helping to promote the other 7 books in the series…
The tutorials were really just rewritten content from my books, but made easier…
That’s great, Sari! Good job repurposing and monetizing your work.