A Plague of Dragons was the first book I deemed “worth of publishing” because I’d cranked through seven drafts and eight to nine editing phases, and I’d got to a point where I no longer wanted to make changes to the plot, the story, or the spelling. I wasn’t happy with the title (originally “Green and Blue”). I was sick of being rejected by agents and publishers, and tired of waiting to be discovered. So I decided to publish it myself. After all, everyone seemed to be doing it these days, so why not join in? Fortunately for me, Amazon self publishing was there, ready to be by my side.
Cue a crash course on learning how to create a book for publication, including formatting, a cover (my original was very bad), and writing a blurb, which was singularly awful. But I did learn about how to request an ISBN, how to lodge a book with the NZ National Library, and a few eBook publishing tips.
A few months later, I settled on a title that was far better than my original: A Plague of Dragons. I also wanted to update the cover, so I drew my own. Honestly, I’m still kindof proud of it, despite it not being perfect. I would have loved to have paid an artist to draw me something, but I was broke. I then published online. And discovered that not only did I need a new ISBN, but I needed to re-lodge my publication with the NZ National Library, as a change of title constituted a new version, and therefore a new book. That was news! But easily remedied.
A few years have passed, and I saved up a bit more money, and I’m SUPER proud to show you the new cover, drawn by the talented artists at Book Cover Hub, who have been stars with creating book covers for me, as I can write you a novel but can’t draw. I have also made some editing changes to the first chapter and a little further down the line (cleaning up a wee plot hole that I noticed upon a re-read). And now I’m ready to present version 3! With new ISBN and I will, of course, have to lodge a new copy with the National Library.
For anyone wanting to do self-publishing as an independent author (#indieauthors unite), and you are in NZ, there is lots of information about multiple versions/multiple editions on their website which I encourage you to read, but I have sent them emails and their team are lovely and always respond very politely to my questions with the answers I require.
With Amazon, creating a new edition you will have to create a wholly new book, but make sure you add the Edition number into the edition box so that they can link the old version with the new version and keep all the reviews and data for you.