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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/14132
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Presumably each book contains a certain set of important facts, ideas, exercises, etc. Let's call the first editions books 1.0, 2.0, etc, and the second editions books 1.1, 2.1, etc. If you want a reader to be able to go from book 4.0 to 5.1, then 5.1 needs to contain a chapter that summarizes the changes from 1.0-4.0 -\> 1.1-4.1. In many fields this sort of thing is possible, but depending on your content it might not be possible or practical.

Another possible solution is to continue to sell the later books in the series, and phase them out gradually, so that readers who started with the old series can continue that series until they finish the whole program. This would make sense if there is nothing inherently wrong with the old series. For example, a language textbook series might undergo a revision where the vocabulary choices and the exercises are changed, the dialogues are updated to be more relevant or more interesting, the exercises are better, the overall organization is improved, etc. None of these improvements diminish the original edition, so you can keep selling it for a period of time if there is demand.

If the series of books is meant to take many years to work through then continuity is more important. If the series is meant to be worked through in a short time, such as one or two years, then this is less of a problem.

Original score: 3