changing book covers and titles for second editions

Hello, I have a question, several actually, and I’m not sure this is the correct forum for it but here goes.

• I have two books out via POD, one is with iUniverse and one is with Author House. I have a third in the series ready for publication.
• Recently a small press interested in publishing my books approached me. Their offer includes publishing the first two books. Yes, miracles do happen.
• While I do not own the POD ISBN, the copyrights are in my name with the LOC.
• In the event I sign a contract my first two books will be issued as second editions.
• Although I have not discussed this with the publisher, I was wondering if the first two books should have new covers made and perhaps new titles. The book text would remain the same. Of course a notation would be made on the copyright page saying that the book had been published as XXX by publisher X.
• My reason for cover and title change is I want to disassociate the books from the POD tag. We all know the reasons why POD has a bad rep so I won’t get into that here. Don’t misunderstand me, my intention is not to dupe buyers, however, I don’t want a bookstore manager seeing my original title and thinking, Oh yeah I’ve seen this before, this is a POD—no sale !.
• Question #1 do these changes make sense from a marketing point of view?
• Question #2 how often do publishers change covers and titles on second editions?
• Question #3 what are the pitfalls of changing covers and titles.

I’ve probably missed more important issues but I trust the membership will address them.
Many thanks for your insights.

That's happened to me too. I have a mystery in house now by Margaret Truman. It a mass market book and I realized I had read before. I looked for a notation on the front pages about this being a iterated edition. There's is none. As I said before I intend to make it as plain as possible that the book is a second editon. It's unlikely that I'll chabge the title unless it make marketing sense. The cover is another matter.

veinglory said:

Speaking only as a reader I must say how much this practise bugs me. I have twice bought books not realising that I had already read them because they had be reissued with a new look (an in one case a new title).

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