Writers Tricks of the Trade Issue 2 Volume 8 | Page 33

Publish An Updated New Edition
of Your Book …
Not Once, But Every Year!
N ED B ARNETT , B ARNETT M ARKETING C OMMUNICATIONS
F ROM H IS F ORTHCOMING B OOK : W RITE N OW ! …
This is a One Volume Book Writing and Promoting Course: Writing, Self-Publishing and
Selling YOUR BOOK to Attract New Clients and Well-Paying Speaking Gigs While
Becoming a News Media Expert
W
hen you finally publish your
book, it will be shiny and new.
That’s important because
readers, and especially book-reviewer
readers, like books that are shiny and
new. However, as soon as January 1 st rolls
around and the calendar changes, sud-
denly your book – along with every other
book published with last-year’s copyright
date – is no longer shiny and new: in-
stead, it’s suddenly old news. This can
squelch sales and cut way back on re-
views. Now if you publish your book on
January 2 nd , you’ll have a full year before
your book seems dated. However, if you
publish it any time after Labor Day,
you’ve just artificially truncated your
“current year” status to just four months,
and that can hurt sales a lot.
So, what can I do?
Fortunately, this is an easy problem to
solve: Publish updated editions of your
book periodically – ideally, every year,
but no less than every other year. This
update must be noted in the copyright
date, of course, but it can and should also
be noted by a “flag” in the upper-right or
upper-left corner of the cover, something
S UMMER 2018
like: “New and Updated for 2018.” For ex-
ample, successful novelist and how-to-
write authorKatie Salidas, took a minimal-
ist approach when she did this with her
“Go Publish Yourself! Quick & Dirty Tips
for Successful Self-Publishing”. Note that
the deep red promo-flag appears in the
upper-right corner of her book’s yellow
cover (an eye-catching color combo). It
reads: “2018 UPDATE.
What if my book is fiction?
Because – to be honest with readers
and book-buyers – you will actually want
to update your book, it is often easier for
non-fiction authors than for novelists to
add a new introduction, a new conclusion
or a new chapter. However, novelists can
update their books as well. They can, for
instance, ask someone who liked the book
to write a new introduction or foreword,
or the novelist could even write a new
prologue to set the stage for the action.
An example of such a prologue can be
found in all of the classic James Bond films
– the movie always opens with some violent,
spectacular and deadly action featuring
Bond, some spy-like shenanigans, lots of
explosions and gunfire, as well as generally
P AGE 28
W RITERS ’ T RICKS OF THE T RADE