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Correct. It was pubbed in the wrong genre with a publisher who sold very few copies. A Big 5 will try to sell a minimum of 1,000 on release, so you certainly haven't saturated your market. In the hands of a good publisher, the book will bear little relation to the one previously on the shelf because the publisher will pump up the correct genre in the edit phase.
Aggy B. is correct on the reason not to use the copy edits, or even the structural edits. The publisher (or editor, if freelance) doesn't have to state their rights. Rights to editorial revisions is inherent in the editor under copyright law, provided they actually touched the text--as opposed to writing an editorial letter, where you made (or didn't make) the changes at their direction.
But when re-marketing a manuscript, return to the original so a new publisher can get the clearest sense of what your intent was in the genre you'd planned for it to be. That intent can be stripped in editing to fit a particular house's style or imprint.
Aggy B. is correct on the reason not to use the copy edits, or even the structural edits. The publisher (or editor, if freelance) doesn't have to state their rights. Rights to editorial revisions is inherent in the editor under copyright law, provided they actually touched the text--as opposed to writing an editorial letter, where you made (or didn't make) the changes at their direction.
But when re-marketing a manuscript, return to the original so a new publisher can get the clearest sense of what your intent was in the genre you'd planned for it to be. That intent can be stripped in editing to fit a particular house's style or imprint.
. Cathy's point is since your book sold so little no one really knows about it. If you change the title, then people might assume it's a book that's never been published before since so few people read it. And that might allow you to get away with landing an agent with it. I'm not sure if any of this is a good idea, and you certainly will have to explain your publishing history with the book to your agent, but that's what she is trying to say. In a weird way I guess if one is with a small press either one wants either really good sales so that a bigger publisher takes one on when they see dollar signs flash before their eyes, or one wants to sell so few that it's basically a brand new book. I imagine in the low thousands would make it a much harder sell to an agent/publisher. So you might actually have an advantage here.
