Reasons to Relaunch Your Self-Published Book

When should you re-examine your book and consider whether it’s time for an update? Here are some tell-tale signs that your book may be ready for a refresh:

Stagnant Book Sales

Plateaued or underperforming book sales are the number one reason authors choose to relaunch or update their self-published book. Once the excitement of your initial book launch ends, keeping the momentum going of generating book sales regularly can feel like a full-time job. Without a solid book marketing strategy, sales will stagnate and eventually drop off. When this happens, it may be time to revisit and update your work to improve readability and drive more sales.

Outdated Information

Self-help and historical non-fiction books are especially prone to aging quickly. If it’s been more than five years since you published your work and it’s in a genre like science, history, politics, or social justice, you may want to consider a deep edit to remove outdated information and provide new insights and statistics as they become available.

Rebrand

Once you’ve published a few books, your writing will improve significantly, and you’ll know more about how the self-publishing process works. This makes your first published book a prime candidate for a relaunch. You may also want to republish your book if you previously published it under a different pen name and want to ensure your current audience has access to all your works.

Benefits of Republishing Your Book

Now that you know the reasons for republishing your book, here are some of the benefits of relaunching your book:

Refreshed Look

Statistically speaking, people do judge books by their covers. Updating your self-published book with new cover art may breathe new life into your book sales. Assess your book’s formatting and trim side to determine whether an update would be beneficial. You should also consider revamping your Amazon listing, book description, and author page, too.

Algorithm Boost

Kindle Direct Publishing gives new releases significant promotional preference and visibility for the first few months. If you republish your book and receive a new ISBN, it’s treated as a new release. You can use this momentum to make additional changes to your book’s listing to give your book an added boost.

New Marketing Strategy

Writing and publishing your book is only part of the process. You need to develop a solid marketing strategy to ensure you’re constantly promoting your work to drive new sales. Maybe you released your book at the wrong time of year, which decreased your ability to market your book well. Or, your book is longer than the recommended word count for your genre, so people are less likely to pick it up. Whatever the reason, relaunching your book is the perfect time to assess your marketing efforts to rejuvenate your book sales in the long term.

Update vs. Relaunch vs. New Edition: Which Should You Pick?

There are three primary ways to relaunch your book. Here’s when you should consider each one:

Update

Updating your book should be reserved for minor changes, thorough editing, or reworking confusing sections based on reader feedback. The general content stays the same, and readers who have already read your book may not notice an immediate change. You can update your book simply by uploading a new file version of your book directly to KDP. You keep your ISBN, ASIN, and original Amazon listing, which also keeps your existing book reviews and rankings.

Relaunch

Relaunches should be reserved for when you want to make a substantial overhaul of the book’s structure, title, chapter layout, and content. Your book will be uploaded as a new product with a new ISBN and ASIN. Changing the title, author name, or table of contents would also be considered a relaunch.

New Edition

Book updates are considered new editions if at least 10% of the content has changed from the original. This could include added chapters, additional insights, or new commentary on existing sections. New editions are considered new books, so they’ll also have new identification numbers. Often, KDP will link the old edition with the new edition so readers can see both.

EABooks Publishing: Relaunch or Update Your Self-Published Book

One of the benefits of self-publishing your book is that you ultimately get to decide when and how to republish your book. You don’t need to beg your publisher to update your work—you make edits, updates, and changes as you desire. However, relaunching or republishing your book requires many of the same steps as you did to initially publish your book, which can make the process seem overwhelming. At EABooks Publishing, we come alongside you on your self-publishing journey and help you with the logistics of relaunching your book, from ensuring it’s formatted appropriately to optimizing your Amazon listing. We’ll also help you assess and suggest what adjustments should be made. Get started on your journey to revamp and republish your book by booking a consultation with us today.