Listener Question: Should I Write a New Book or Re-Launch the Old One?
Paul Colligan has written 13 books, is in the Podcasting Hall of Fame and has helped Donald Miller, Brendan Burchard, JJ Virgin and Joe Polish turn podcasting into what he calls a “grown-up business strategy” instead of a hobby. He also sent me a question I love: when you already have a working book, how do you know if it’s time to write a new one or keep leveraging the one you’ve got?
I have very strong feelings about this one, mostly because I got the answer wrong for six years and recently got right.
And Paul’s specific situation is one a lot of multi-book authors may recognize. He has a workhorse title, How to Podcast, that has been the category-defining book in its lane for years. But the world has changed underneath it—AI, the death of “if you build it, they will come,” the shift from downloads to impact.
So….does he update it? Write the new manifesto? Write nothing and double down on the consulting? I had a take on all of the above—and more.
In this episode:
- The six-year mistake I made early in my career that the publishing industry rewards you for making
- Why cranking out a new book every 18 months might be hurting your authority instead of building it
- The specific move I told Paul Colligan to make with How to Podcast
- The Amazon trick that lets you treat an old book like a new one—and why almost nobody uses it
- The exact month of the year I would release a relaunch (and the month I’d never release one in)
- The audiobook question every “updated edition” author has to answer—and the answer that surprised me
