Rebranding, Refreshing or Rewriting?

Chiefereal · Aug 1, 2014

Hello fellow writers. In 2011, I had self-published a book titled "Catch Me If You Know How - Internet Edition" under my publisher of Ominous light Publishing. After a tremendous amount of setbacks in my life over the last few years, I am finally back to starting my writing again. It has excellent reviews on Amazon.

My initial book was intended to be the first of many books in a series, which I opted to call "editions." I still have the intention and ambition to do this, but have taken a step back and reviewed my past efforts in hopes of improving and fixing any shortcomings. As it turned out, my cartoons of a fat guy (me) was not received very well among some other things. So I am now faced with with what to do next, and was hoping for feedback and input form others here.

The options I see are:

1.) Go back and "update" my first book and re-release it as a v2 of the same book name. This means the book will be approximately 95% unchanged but refreshed with current information (and some rebranding).
2.) Leave my first book as is and rebrand the second book to be similar but improved and under a different edition name. This will cause me to have two related books that appear to look different. I do wish to allow people to see that my first book is a few years old though so that they do not confuse it with the new editions.
3.) Just rewrite from scratch.

I have also decided that I am no longer offering print books as I did with my first book, and will focus solely on eBooks instead. Kind of makes sense considering my books are of technical nature anyways.

Thanks in advance for your input.

RevanWright · Aug 1, 2014

That's a tough decision. Unfortunately, we as writers have little freedom to change or erase the things we want to after they're out for the world to see (not without upsetting some readers, anyway). It's difficult because those that bought the 1st book may be a little miffed that you're re-releasing it in an updated format and they'd have to buy it again or forgo the benefits exclusively available to those buying for the first time. Then again, they may be confused by the 2nd being so different.
If the changes are that minor, however, and you're just rebranding and retooling, then it may be safe to go with the first option. I'm not going to pretend that I have any experience in that area, though.

J. Tanner · Aug 1, 2014

1) 2nd edition would make a lot of sense if it's 95% the same material.

Old Hack · Aug 2, 2014

I'm not sure whether I'm confused or you are!

Chiefereal said:
My initial book was intended to be the first of many books in a series, which I opted to call "editions."

If you want to publish a revised edition of your book then that's fine. But I am concerned that you intend to publish a new book, and call it a new edition of your old book.

Different books in a series aren't different editions: they're different books.

A new edition of a book is a book which was previously published, and which has since been revised substantially enough to warrant a newer, improved version of that original book.

Is that what you're planning? I just want to be clear.

Polenth · Aug 2, 2014

If you do nothing else, toss out calling different books in a series 'editions'. A new edition is a revised version of an older book, not a different book in the series. You're just going to confuse everyone if you have both new editions of the first book, and then later books in the series called editions.

Celeste Carrara · Aug 2, 2014

Polenth said:
If you do nothing else, toss out calling different books in a series 'editions'. A new edition is a revised version of an older book, not a different book in the series. You're just going to confuse everyone if you have both new editions of the first book, and then later books in the series called editions.

I agree with this. You are just going to confuse readers with calling the books "editions".

I also wanted to add that if you revise and upload a new version of book one in your series there's nothing wrong with that. Those that have purchased your ebook in the past on Amazon will get a notice that there is a revised edition available and they can download it for free to replace the old file.

I revised book one in my series simply by replacing the old file with the new one. I didn't change the cover, the price, or the blurb. People knew it was a revised, updated edition because it says on the listing "2nd edition" and has a new publication date.

Rebranding, Refreshing or Rewriting?

Chiefereal

RevanWright

inconveniently drunk

J. Tanner

Old Hack

Such a nasty woman

Polenth

Mushroom

Celeste Carrara

practical experience, FTW