Howdy everyone,
I’ve been working hard on rereading my original novel – Brass Legionnaire – and catching the many errors that seemed to slip under the radar of both myself, my beta readers, and my editor (or, as an alternative read on this, the small errors that escaped only because the big ones took the fire for the little ones. As my introductory novel to the world of the Steam Empire Chronicles, it is important to me that readers want to continue. So I’m going back and revising it.
Another major reason is that the translation process is (finally!!!!) about to be started on Brass Legionnaire, to translate the book into Portuguese, and I’d rather the translators work from an experienced writer’s skills, rather than a novice’s. So to that end, I have a question for my (handful) of blog readers. Once I update Brass Legionnaire’s manuscript, and I updated it to Amazon, B&N, etc., will that change my reviews of the book?
Another question is, will it update the book contents in everyone’s kindle account? Ideally that would be awesome! Anyways, everyone’s thoughts on the matter would be great.
In other news, Laurel Emperor is off to the formatter – the ebook version should be coming out sometime in September, which is perfect for everyone who needs a good read right as school starts again (so you can forget school is starting again!)
Modern Papyrus 
First off, I think it’s great that you’re rewriting any parts you’re not satisfied with. That’s one of the great thing about ebooks and print-on-demand. You’re not stuck with what you initially publish. Heck, even Dickens wrote a new ending to Great Expectations after his readers complained about the first ending. And if I were J. K. Rowling, I’d rewrite the last two Harry Potter books. Even she said she was not happy with the ending.
Amazon readers will not automatically receive an updated version. I updated my ebook, Gecnawan Creation, before I had any reviews on Amazon. (Now I have a staggering 2). My changes did not greatly alter the plot, but they were a lot more than simply correcting typos. I requested Amazon give the few people who had downloaded it a free updated copy. They reviewed the changes (or a computer did), found they were significant and notified my readers that there was a new version they could download for free. Here’s a helpful link: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200966010
I don’t know what happens with your reviews. Given how hard it is getting reviews, I would not want to lose them. I think–but I’m not positive–that merely uploading a new version does not affect reviews. I know you don’t need Amazon’s permission (other than impliedly) to do it. But if you have Amazon get directly involved by notifying your readers that a new version is available, that could be different. I don’t think it should be, but who knows. I would email Amazon and ask them before I chanced losing my reviews.
Sorry, but I have no experience with changing my book on Smashword. I put it on that site much later.
If you can’t give your old readers a new version, for whatever reason, you can feel good knowing they now own rare collector’s editions. I’m not sure many people would reread a book, anyway.
Thanks! That’s good to hear that people can get a free downloaded version. I would expect that the reviews stay the same if it justs updates the manuscript. Hopefully people like it 🙂