If you’re the author of a non-fiction book, you may have found over time that the information you shared has become outdated. You could retire the title and remove the book from sale, but that’s hard to bring yourself to do after putting so much time and effort into writing, publishing, and marketing it!

Fortunately, there’s an alternative – you can publish a second edition of your book. This has many benefits for both the book and the author, one of which is the opportunity to update the interior and get a fresh, new cover design. While this is exciting, the truth is you can update the interior and/or cover of an existing self-published book any time you want. What I’m talking about is releasing a new version of your book to the world, with another launch to reach bestseller status and ignite Amazon’s powerful algorithm all over again. You see, your second edition will also need a new ISBN, so it will actually be viewed by online retailers, including Amazon, as a new book. This is huge, because as we know Amazon favors new books, and we want Amazon cross-promoting our books to potential readers.

Over the years, I’ve assisted many of my clients at Transcendent Publishing with the design and release of their second edition. Recently, however, I decided to do it for one of my own books, so I’ll share my experience with you below.

Back in June of 2016, I published Authorpreneur: How to Build an Empire and Become the AUTHORity in Your Business. The book served its purpose in my business at the time ‒ it brought in new clients, grew my mailing list, got me featured with speaking engagements, and opened doors to new opportunities. I marketed it heavily for the first couple of years, but as time went on I found myself mentioning it less and less; thus, the offers from my book stopped rolling in.

What happened? Well, there were two things that I know for sure. Some of the information I had shared about building a business, along with the tools and strategies I recommended, had become outdated, as they quickly do in the digital age; therefore, I no longer felt confident marketing the book. And because the book was a few years old, Amazon no longer pushed it to their readers, especially since I wasn’t doing anything on my end to keep the sales rolling in or pump my sales ranking.

Since I have a new book, Self-Publishing Success, coming out in March, I thought this might be a great time to update Authorpreneur’s content, spruce it up with a fresh cover design that matches my current branding (which has changed a LOT since 2016); clean up the blurb that’s featured via online retailers; and republish it under a new ISBN so it’s treated as a new book in the eyes of the ’Zon.

So, I sat down with the original manuscript and I made some changes. It was nothing major – I updated the statistics I share throughout to reflect current data; I changed out a section I had written on tele-classes (I told you it was outdated!) to Zoom workshops; changed some of the business tools and processes; swapped out my bio; and rewrote the call-to-action page so it reflects my current offers for readers who get to the back of the book and want to continue the journey with me. I also had to update the copyright page with the new ISBN and reference that it’s the second edition.

Once I made those changes, I needed to have my revisions copyedited and the book reformatted for both paperback and e-book, then have the print-ready file proofread. Once I had the final page count of the formatted paperback interior, I was able to have my cover designer create a fresh, new cover that matches my current branding and has the updated back cover text, author photo, and bio.

Take a look at my outdated first edition’s cover in comparison to the new second edition:

Next, I uploaded the files to both IngramSpark and KDP and was sure to reference that it was a second edition in the metadata. I then submitted the files for publishing, and while the files were in review I took that time to unpublish the first edition. With KDP, that was as easy as the click of a button for the e-book, while IngramSpark requires you to open a ticket with the request so it took a few extra days for the paperback to be removed from distribution. Even then, Ingram let me know that the first edition of the paperback may still be available for a while via online retailers if third-party sellers had it listed, which they did.

Once the second edition was approved, I worked with Amazon to get my reviews transferred, which can be done as long as the title, subtitle and author name stay the same. Prior to the transfer I had twenty-six reviews, and after the transfer I was left with seventeen. This was not surprising, as in my experience doing this for my clients I’ve found that the majority, but not all, of the reviews will transfer. Amazon blocks or removes reviews when they connect you to your reviewer in some way, and they won’t disclose why or add the reviews back, so it’s just part of the process you must accept. Still, I was happy that at least seventeen of my reviews transferred.

I also logged into my Amazon Author Central account and claimed the new version so it would be listed on my profile page. While I was in there, I took the time to update my bio and headshot.

Next, I dropped the price of the e-book to $.99, worked with Amazon to get it added to ten categories (instead of two), and ran some paid features with Book Promoters to get my sales ranking up, which is a service we offer at Transcendent Publishing through our Bestseller Marketing Campaign.

As planned, it went to bestseller in just two days; it reached #1 in eight categories in the US and five categories in Australia, making it an International Bestseller!

Now, with some minor updating, I have a fresh, new edition of my book. It’s reached bestseller status, and I’ve ignited Amazon’s algorithm so they are now cross-promoting it to potential readers. The sales are rolling in, and I’m glad I was able to breathe new life into a book that I had once considered retiring. Since, as mentioned, I’m publishing a new book soon and there will be plenty of eyes on my Amazon profile, I feel better about having the new edition featured.

If you’re a published author and you have your original manuscript as a Word doc, or the INDD file of the formatted file, this is something you can do as well.

To recap, here’s what you’ll need:

· Updated interior

· Copyediting and proofreading

· Formatted PDF for paperback and .epub file for e-book

· New cover design with a print-ready PDF cover for paperback and a JPEG front cover for e-book

· New ISBN for the paperback

· New ISBN for the e-book, unless you plan to offer Amazon exclusivity (an e-book ISBN is not required when publishing solely through KDP)

· Updated author bio

· Updated headshot

· Updated blurb

· Updated Amazon Author Central listing

· Reviews transferred (or new reviews via a launch team or Pubby)