Republishing Previously Published Books

[Brittany]

Hello, Indies!

First of all, Merry Christmas!!!

Okay, my question isn't one that's life or death for anyone, but I'm curious. After previously publishing a book, have any of you ever pulled a book off the "shelf" to rewrite/edit/get a new cover/etc. and then republished it again? I don't think I'm going to do this. My book is selling better than I expected, and I've had mostly good reviews. As I grow as an author though, there's an itch to make it even better, particularly when I see ways I could have made my first book better. (Most of the critiques I get talk about how they would have liked the book to be longer.)

I will admit, I didn't get an editor for the first one. You know how money grows on trees for first time authors. I was able to afford a quick edit for my second book, and I'd like to do an even more in-depth edit for my next book (The sequel to my first book). I don't think I'm going to rewrite the first one because the ratings are generally good. I'm just curious to see what you all have done when you start getting the itch to "fix" already published books.

[Alp]

I have done this. In fact, at one stage, I removed all my titles from Amazon, re-edited them all (nearly finished!!), changed up covers and republished - daunting as it sounds, it was okay. But you don't need to remove it from the shelf while the edit is being done - just swap out when the new version of the text is ready ...

I think it is a good idea to periodically change up covers, refresh the blurb and undertake modest rewrites if you feel that the story would benefit from it.

Alp

[Riley, Viking Extraordinaire]

That's all I did, I kept my series published, and just updated the files on KDP and Smashwords.

[[deleted user]]

Never pulled it off the shelf; always just uploaded the changes.

[Ben]

I definitely have. About 7-8 years ago, I published my book that's out now and it was almost completely unrecognizable from the most recent iteration. I just wasn't happy with it from start to finish after some time had passed, so I scrapped the whole thing and completely re-wrote it from scratch. Most people would never do that, but I'm so much happier now that I have. I still think about changes that I could make, but now I prefer to leave well enough alone.

That's one of the biggest benefits for self-publishing. Being able to makes changes as you see fit is amazing. However, you don't want to make too many too often. Eventually, the book needs to be done otherwise readers won't be able to identify it from one of your other editions.

[Christina]

I'll make changes if I find a typo, but if I've published a book and even one person has purchased it, I will not do any content changes. As far as I'm concerned, this would be like making a movie that was loved the world over and then going back twenty years later to fuss with it, only to find that what you thought was an enahancement upset your fan base.

Changing covers and blurbs is a little different. Everything gets repackaged at some point and books are no exception. But on the other hand, too many changes can also confuse readers. I swear there are some books on my kindle that have a new cover every time I open my library.

[[deleted user]]

I revised my first novel and issued a 2nd edition with three new chapters, and a few scenes added, deleted, or shortened. Not very many people had read the first version anyway, and the changes to the overall story were nil--just deepened a little. I didn't even notify Amazon that it was a second edition, so all of my reviews refer to the first version.

If something about your original bothers you, as it did for mine, I'd recommend changing it so you're satisfied with it, and can move on with a clear conscience.

[Narayan]

I made many, many changes to the ebook version. Once I had it in print however, I resisted being so reckless with it. I haven't made a single edit, mostly because doing so would be costly.

Christina, do I detect a Star Wars fan? haha

[Roxanne]

Good thread--I've been thinking about republishing my first book as a 2nd edition. Most of the reviews were pretty good (except on GR, I got trashed) but a few reviewers helpfully pointed out ways the book could have been better. So when I finish my current WIP, I'm going back to that one.

[Christina]

Narayan wrote: "Christina, do I detect a Star Wars fan? haha "

What? Who? Ahem! *cough*Hanshotfirst*cough* I have no idea what you could be talking about. ;p

[Owen]

We released a new edition of one of our books because it had a very extensive glossary that was not popular with readers. So we pulled out the glossary and made it a separate document. We contacted Amazon, and while this was a new edition, our reviews were preserved.

This sort if thing is pretty common and as far back as the 70's I recall publishers releasing revived and expanded editions of previously published work, in some cases taking a short novel and revamping it as a quite long one.

I personally wouldn't unpublish a book unless I discovered some serious issue with it. Simply update the book when the new version is ready and identify as a new edition or not, depending on the degree of revision.

[P.D.R.]

I think that after five years it might be good to update covers, author note, and in some cases, in books which haven't sold well, a darned good edit and rewrite. That's the joy of being an Indie.

[Kat]

I have not. I always make my books as close to perfection as possible before releasing them, so there's no need for further editing or rewriting. But if I were, it would be only because of some major issues (like getting a big prize, a movie adaptation, or technical issues), not because of a missing comma or fans' demand.

[T.R.]

When I published my first novel (which had been beta-read and proofread and checked and everything,) my mom went and bought a copy...and the next time I saw her she handed me a stack of post-it notes with all the typos I missed. So I fixed all those and re-uploaded the book. (And now I just let her proofread before I publish.)
I think it makes sense if it's an e-book to at least fix mistakes like typos and formatting, especially if there's a lot of them. Changing content is probably something you'd want to avoid unless you made some really drastic screwup that warrants a major change like that, but it's up to the author really.

[Melissa]

I'm doing this right now; a total revamp of my first published novel. I haven't pulled the old version off the shelf yet, though, because I still haven't decided if I want to stick to who I originally published with (LuLu) or change over the Amazon. Although I probably should pull it from the shelf because the writing of the original isn't very... er... pretty :/ (<---- understatement of the year).

[M. Ray Holloway Jr.]

I started with this self-publishing thing by writing and releasing several short stories. When I get enough of them together, I plan to combine them into a book and add some new material never published before. At that time, I will probably go over each piece and do any rewriting that is needed, shortening or lengthening anything to improve the stories. Since this will be a separate work from my individual shorts, I won't take anything off the market unless Amazon requires it.

...at least, that is the plan.

[K.P.]

I only did this once (the agency). l released the first book after the first iteration was badly done and learned what to do to make it professional. it sold well and I had some good write ups in magazines (in 2005). I didn't like the book because it wasn't my vision (I wrote it according to popular tropes and it was very mainstream. also it was very condensed ). I took it down after 4 years and rereleased it to my vision in 2009. I updated the cover art and it did okay at first. now it's barely moving due to audience tastes changing. but I'm fine with it. my older works are nearly 20 years old so my target audience won't get it (it's YA. I wrote it as a teen but the slang and technology are old). I'm no longer worried about making money off that series and focus on the others that are more genre specific (fantasy and science fiction ).

[[deleted user]]

I've done this, yes. I had three books published on Lulu at first. One of them, a collection of poetry, I decided to take off the market because it was rather vitriolic. Angry romantic poetry, that sort of thing. It was very personal and most of it I wrote when I was upset. My moods and opinions change often, so I was no longer angry even though the poems were, and I felt that even though the poems were pretty good, it wasn't a nice book.

So I took the book off Lulu... actually I wound up deleting all three of my books from Lulu.

I felt that one of my other books needed a better cover. There were also a few phrases I worded incorrectly, so I edited it and re-published on Smashwords.

The third book was a collection of erotica. There were five erotic stories total. I felt that only one of the stories was really good enough, so I deleted the book off the internet and published the one good story with a less risqué book cover.

So far sales have been decent, but it was an embarrassing gaffe. I feel that if I had waited to publish, and maybe proofread a bit more carefully, it would have reflected better on me as a professional, but I'm moving forward to other projects.

[Iffix]

I'm actually working on this myself at present. I had some issues with a book cover on my first book, and I decided that since I had to redo the cover, I could stand a bit of re-editing.

Particularly, a few of the complaints my readers have expressed include head hopping (I tend to like to show what a variety of my characters are thinking. Apparently, some readers don't like this. I'm essentially going back to add some cues.) and a lack of description for characters (I write sci-fi, so some manner of description is important.).

In addition, eight months later, I have discovered that my writing has improved again to a slight degree, so I've been revising my word choice. But, with respect to those who already bought a copy, I figured it would be a kindness to avoid making any major changes to the plot or action scenes, so it didn't feel like the first batch read a completely different story than everyone else.