Republishing Your Old Books

loves savage destiny by melissa bowersock book coverThere comes a time in almost every writer’s life when you need or decide to republish an earlier book. It may be because the first edition was packaged according to a traditional publisher’s ideas (which may or may not have aligned with yours), or it may be because you want to update the book, correct some early-writer faux pas, or just do a general spring cleaning. Whatever the motivation, it’s your book and you can do with it what you like (with caveats). Here’s a quick overview of some things you might consider as you proceed.

Getting Your Rights Back

If your book was originally published by a traditional publisher, you must get your rights back from them before you publish independently. Continue reading “Republishing Your Old Books”

Your Beautiful Backlist

authors backlist by anatomography from wikimedia commonsauthors backlist by anatomography from wikimedia commons
Image courtesy of Anatomography from Wikimedia Commons

There was a thread on Kboards this week that focused on what authors thought their best writing was. Almost without exception, writers thought their most recent books were their best. That feels like human nature to me, for several reasons. One, we tend to love new things. Our old projects had been sweated over, rewritten, edited, re-edited, and proofread ad nauseum, while our current project is still full of infinite possibilities. Second, we improve as we go. When I go back and read my first book, I admit I cringe a bit. It was the best I could do at the time, and it was professionally edited and proofread, but, if I’m honest, I have to admit that I’d like to get in there and give it a good scrubbing.

For these and other reasons, we tend to spend the majority of our time on our newest releases – seeking reviews, booking promo sites, organizing blog tours, etc. I just want to remind you of the power of your backlist, and ask you to not neglect it too much. Continue reading “Your Beautiful Backlist”

One Author’s View on Revising Your Backlist

reading glasses-272399_640For those of us who have more than one published book in our resume, looking forward is only natural. The second book leads us toward the third, the fourth, the fifth. But the first? Old news, maybe even ancient history. Why revisit that first effort when so many new stories are beckoning?

There are actually a couple of good reasons. Continue reading “One Author’s View on Revising Your Backlist”

That Book’s Time Is Over

I’ve heard from a number of authors recently how they wanted to wait until their new books came out to run features. As always, I offered to them the opportunity to run a Sneak Peek (book excerpt) for their book since it was more than 90 days old and therefore didn’t qualify for an announcement feature. Their response “Nah, that book’s time is over.”

Um…what?

No. I don’t buy that. Sorry. So, the book didn’t take off the way you’d hoped. That doesn’t mean you should give up on it. There’s no reason that you shouldn’t take advantage of book excerpts or guest posts or any other opportunity which comes your way to feature that book. Continue reading “That Book’s Time Is Over”