Second Edition Solutions

How a second edition of your non-fiction book can give a title a new lease of life

This article first appeared in print in the October 2025 issue of Writing Magazine. (Some links in this piece are affiliate links.)

When I first self-published The Complete Article Writer: How To Write And Sell Magazine Articles, most editors still wanted freelance material submitted by post. Who remembers enclosing a stamped addressed envelope for the editor to return your manuscript if it wasn’t accepted? And if I could offer an editor some photos to accompany my article, I’d send them some 35mm colour slides, or save some digital images onto a CD-ROM and pop that in the post, too.

If I wanted to research a magazine’s readership or look for potential freelance-written slots in a magazine, I had to traipse to my local newsagent, hope they had a copy of the publication in stock, buy it, and then traipse back home to analyse it.

But within a couple of years, pitching and submitting to editors by email became the norm, and Netflix-style magazine apps like Readly (gb.readly.com) and PocketMags (pocketmags.com) meant I could research magazines from anywhere in the world without having to leave the comfort of my desk.