I'll get straight to the point... If I titled a published book, The Blood Reapers, which the contract expired in 2016, and I rewrote the story with the same 3 main characters but changed a lot of the story, would it be okay to call this novel The Blood Reapers, also? Would I have to give it a subtitle, like Revised or 2nd Edition? In 2011, my first book, a 103-page novella, was published by Damnation Books. Admittedly, I rushed it and let my personal life affect the length, and lack in my story. It was published anyway because what I didn't know at the time was Damnation was just a lady (Kim Richards FYI) who self-published her own works and used the works of others as a means to fast cash in a way where she wouldn't lose any money by taking on as many authors as she'd like. Needless to say, she went under and sold all her contracts to someone else as low on the food-chain as her, and when my contract expired, I refused to renew it, My novella is still listed on Amazon because it has reviews, but the tagline, description, and all other information besides the title have been removed and there's no option to purchase it. That's the only website I've found it on since my contract expired. So yeah, how should I go about this? Thanks!
I feel like this is self-plagiarism but I don't know how that works outside of academia. I'd say you could probably get away with calling it the revised edition?
Yeah, I'd look into that more. As a book buyer I'm furious when I feel ripped off. I accidentally bought - the Burning World by J.g. Ballard and the Drought by J.g. Ballard - same book. I'd want some warning that this book has some former incarnation. I'm with Dogberry's Watch I'd call it a revised edition.
How many people bought the original? If not more than a dozen or so maybe you could just reuse the title. But since it's now a novel and significantly different, I think I'd either say revised edition or maybe expanded from the original novella.
A dozen copies sound about right. It's roughly the same story. All 3 of the most important characters are the same aside from the MC's backstory and geographical location. The antagonist is identical. Also, there's no way to even buy my novella now, unless it's sold illegally. Paper copies were printed upon sale and most the copies that sold were e-books. I sold 3 or 4 hard copies to friends and family. Basically, aside from its the on Amazon, (which I will link below so you can see what I mean) the book only exists to those who read it. The Amazon page used to have the editor and cover artist listed as co-authors, along with the tagline, and synopsis, but as you can see, the page was wiped clean. I'm not sure why the page even exists, unless solely for archival purposes. https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Reapers-Darren-Author-Paperback/dp/B00GSI8CRQ/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=darren+frey&qid=1587348785&s=books&sr=1-1
If the only the people who even have copies of the original novella are people you know personally, I wouldn't worry about it.
This is a bit off-topic, but does anyone know why that page still exists? Is there a way I could have it removed?
