Reddit mentions of Relaunch Your Novel: Breathe Life Into Your Backlist (Write Faster, Write Smarter Book 6)

Chris Fox has a book on relaunching novels that might be of help to you https://www.amazon.com/Relaunch-Your-Novel-Breathe-Backlist-ebook/dp/B071HVZD1G

Way I see it, you have three options:

1. Take the books down and revise them, then re-publish them yourself. Chris Fox, who's a very successful self-published author, wrote a nonfiction book titled Relaunch Your Novel: Breathe Life Into Your Backlist. It's a very good resource for how to go about relaunching previously published books, and he talks about this method. I know a few self-published authors who have done just that and they ended up more successful the second time around.
   
   
2. Take the books down and revise them, then try shopping them around to agents or small presses that accept submissions. This will be an uphill climb, though. Usually, traditional publishing is only interested in buying the rights to self-published books if they were already successful as self-published. It's not impossible for them to be interested, but I would say it's highly improbable.
   
   
3. Push on ahead. You could write for a century and you'll still look back on your most-recent work and find mistakes that drive you nuts. If you're embarrassed by those early novels, then take them down. But don't revise them. Understand the mistakes you made and keep those lessons in mind as you begin working on something new.
   
   My personal preference is the third option, but the first is also a good one. I don't think you'll have much luck with the second.

/u/Arkelias (Chris Fox) actually has a book on this very subject called Relaunch Your Novel. Check it out. I decided that relaunching my old series ultimately wasn't for me since the return still wouldn't be worth the effort, but Chris goes through the process in some detail. Worth a read.

Never do your own cover. They aren't that expensive ($150 is common). The reviews on your Amazon page are encouraging, and those 4 and 5 star blurbs like "This book really sucked me in and became a real page turner" mean a great deal more than what your friends say/think. You won't get anyone you know to actually read and review the thing because they don't share your interests enough to be your ideal reader. Don't worry about it. Statistically, your ideal readership is a very exclusive club scattered all around the world.

In the long run, if you are looking to make a career out of this, it's almost time to invest in a real editor. Read this book and do what it says. The generally accepted magic number is 3 books, but you can wait until 4 or 5 if you're patient and secure in your day job.

>If one cover was better than another you wouldn’t see books constantly rereleased with new covers.

There's lots to unpick here, but I'd suggest you read Chris Fox's Relaunch Your Novel to get a bit more knowledge of this point.

Covers absolutely matter, it's why everyone from the big five to top-selling indies invest in them. Data-driven authors like Fox, Cooper, and Anderle invest in them heavily because they matter so significantly. Part of it is branding, sure, but it's also making your product compelling.

A few people aren't influenced by covers, but they're a minority. Reader decisions for things like KU next-to-read are done based on a thumbnail when their kindle suggests their next book.

I've got data based on my own publishing journey to back this up. I changed covers on a series and watched sales tank, and reswitched covers and they picked back up. Blurb + price + reviews were all the same, so if it's not covers selling books, is it sorcery? :)