One of the best parts of self-publishing is the ability to control your brand. And one of the more frustrating aspects of self-publishing is navigating platforms like Goodreads, where a great deal of your control is sacrificed to keep control with the Goodreads Librarians. Even simple things like how to change a cover on Goodreads can seem impossible, but there is a workaround to update your cover and book description. Whether you’ve refreshed your cover with a more commercially viable design or you’re looking to replace your ARC placeholder, it’s easy to add a new edition and set it as your default edition that readers will interact with when they go to leave a review. In this step-by-step guide, I’ll show you how I refreshed the cover for Industrialized, Part One: Experiment with screenshots to make it easy.
Step One: Navigate to your book’s page
First and foremost, you will need to be a Goodreads Author to make this change. Becoming a Goodreads Author can be a frustrating process in and of itself, but it’s worth enduring the pangs and toils of procedure to be able to update and control your books. See the three dots next to “Edit book details”? Go ahead and click those, and then select “Add a new edition” from the dropdown menu.
Step Two: Add a new edition of your book
This is where you can update your book’s description and cover. For Part One, I chose to update both. While Goodreads warns that the new edition may not be searchable for a few days, I was able to see my updated edition immediately.
Step Three: Combine your book editions
Back on your book’s homepage, be sure to combine editions. This may have happened automatically, but the page this button takes you to will be needed for the next step, so it doesn’t hurt to check.
Step Four: Edit your book details
Your newest edition should appear at the bottom of your list. See the “edit” button underlined on the screenshot above? Go ahead and click that. It will take you to this page:
See the underlined text on the right side of my screen here that says “Set this book as the primary edition for this work”? Go ahead and click that. The page should refresh automatically, and your updates will be featured on your book’s Goodreads page. The other editions will still be visible, but the version you’re marketing will now be front and center. If you navigate back to your book’s Goodreads page, you should be able to see your changes:
Congrats, you’ve decoded how to change a cover on Goodreads!
Seriously! It’s that simple. How to change a cover on Goodreads is a commonly asked question, and you’ll often be told that it’s not possible without the help of a Goodreads Librarian. And while it’s true that you can’t change the cover for a past edition, you can add a new edition with a refreshed cover and book description and make it the primary edition for readers to interact with.
This is a bit like SEO, in a way – you’re just generating new content to bury the older, less relevant content. It’ll still be discoverable, but the content you want from and center on the page will be.
Have more questions about the self-publishing process? Check out my guide to self-publishing to help take the guesswork out of procedure.