If you are reading this article, chances are your book has a problem that you would like to address in some way.

The good news is that self-publishing makes it easy to correct your book mistakes, but there are two ways to do this: updating or republishing your book.

With a strategic update or republishing of your book, you can easily fix your book's mistakes, course-correct poor marketing, and even increase your book sales.

But what does it mean to update or republish a book? Which one is for you? In what situations should you use one or the other?

Because the truth is, they are very different and they both have different consequences. 

What is Republishing vs Updating a Book?

Put simply, updating a book allows you to make changes to the current listing of your book without losing your ISBN, ASIN, and book landing page.

Republishing a book essentially creates an entirely new book, complete with a new ISBN, ASIN, and book landing page.

However, there are some nuances to each, and some special actions authors can take to maximize the benefits of an update or a republish that you should know about.

How to Republish Your Book

In order to republish your book, just follow these steps:

• Step 1: make sure you have the new edition of your book completely ready to go
• Step 2: go through the standard KDP upload process
• Step 3: If your book is a new edition of an old book, rather than a relaunch, make sure you specify this in the book details section while you are uploading to KDP (see picture below)
• Step 4: hit publish and wait for Amazon to approve your new book
• Step 5: once your new book is live, find your old book, however over the three little dots, and select Unpublish

How to Update Your Book on Amazon

To update your book on Amazon, follow these simple steps:

• Step 1: Go to your Amazon KDP dashboard
• Step 2: Find your book, hover over the three dots, and select “Edit e-book details” or “Edit paperback details” (depending on which version you are updating)
• Step 3: make any metadata changes you would like, such as your description, keywords, or categories, then hit “Save and Continue”
• Step 4: if you have direct changes to the manuscript or book cover, you can add them next, then hit “Save and Continue” again
• Step 5: if you have changes you want to make to the pricing or available marketplaces, you can make them here
• Step 6: Hit Publish!