Relaunching Anyone?

[sr71plt]

I went into erotica market e-booking with the theory that they could be pulled after three years or so and relaunched and have a new life. I figure the titles quickly get sunk to the background and that there's a whole new audience after a couple of years.

So, I'm in the process of pulling thirteen of the fifteen erotica titles I have from 2008 and reviewing them all; reworking a few, either by recasting or expanding; and after a few months of dormancy, relaunching them under new covers (of course clearly marking them as relaunches unless they've been extensively recast). Has anyone else done this already--and, if so, with what result?

 

[jomar]

Made me think of all the Bladerunner relaunches...might hold the record for movie re-releases.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Not exactly. But I seem to keep writing the same damned story over and over again.

I remember reading an article a few years ago on how to come up with instant plots. The guy's advice was: go to a Salvation Army store or somesuch and buy old romance paperbacks, over 7 years old. Then change the names and steal the plot.

Whatever.

I've got 2 books with low-rent POD outfits I signed with before I knew any better. They owned the rights for 7 years and now their time's up. I could re-publish them, but they're pretty much crap.

 

[beatrice_dreams]

I went into erotica market e-booking with the theory that they could be pulled after three years or so and relaunched and have a new life. I figure the titles quickly get sunk to the background and that there's a whole new audience after a couple of years.

So, I'm in the process of pulling thirteen of the fifteen erotica titles I have from 2008 and reviewing them all; reworking a few, either by recasting or expanding; and after a few months of dormancy, relaunching them under new covers (of course clearly marking them as relaunches unless they've been extensively recast). Has anyone else done this already--and, if so, with what result?

As a consumer,I think new covers can make a huge difference. I was doing some research on covers in my own genre and for some fun grabbed what I thought were best and worst covers off of Amazon (and when we're talking Romance, the bodice-busters of the late 80's/early 90's were pretty horrific!). Long story short, when I looked at the publication information on both the best and the worst, they'd actually been first published in exactly the same year, but one had been smart enough to get new artwork. One I wouldn't pick up if it were the last book on earth, and the other I thought was rather lovely.

I'm not familiar with your ebook covers and if they actually do require any updating, but I think it can have a big impact if you choose to relaunch.

 

[sr71plt]

They'll all have to have new covers, yes, because they will have different publishers, and the covers are provided by the publisher. In some cases, the new publisher may want to buy the same image the old publisher did, though, in which case it would be just the image treatment and display type that would change. Some of my books are written to a specific cover image and I'll want the new one to stay as close to that as possible. (But the original publisher owns that particular cover design--but sometimes not the image used.)

A kicker will be that if there isn't an value added to the e-book (recasting, expansion), the blurb for the new version will need to quite explicitly state it is a relaunch--so buyers of the old version don't buy the new one thinking it's a new story. I've gotten bitten by that myself occasionally by buying books in Europe from the UK market only later to buy the same text book from the American version, with a different cover--and often with a different title. (Lots of Agatha Christie books got this treatment).

 

[sr71plt]

I've got 2 books with low-rent POD outfits I signed with before I knew any better. They owned the rights for 7 years and now their time's up. I could re-publish them, but they're pretty much crap.

You can rewrite them so they aren't crap and launch them in the e market. You'll probably make more off them now than you did the first time around. A largely different buyer base and many new readers in the market.

I relaunched a six-volume mystery series that I had in my real name in the early-mid nineties as e-books-to-print under a pen name in 2009 through 2011, and they are selling.