How many rewrites are enough?

Let's be honest; there is no perfect work; we can always rewrite.

For my book Adopted and Restored, first, I wrote.

First rewrite: organize and fill in gaps.

Second rewrite: add 1500 words. That was actually not enough. I ended up adding 2500.

Third rewrite: remove 1500 words. I found, when rewriting magazine articles that needed to be trimmed, that removing words forces me to tighten up my writing.

Fourth rewrite: My agent/editor/friend reads my book and gives details criticism. It's okay, (sniff, sniff) I can take it. Then I work with those critiques, adding, subtracting, shifting.

Fifth rewrite: Read the whole shebang and polish, tightening the rhetoric.

My mother told me of a romance novelist who did 17 rewrites, each one on a different color paper. Sound excessive? Maybe, but she was published. Can't argue with success.