While we all love the tactile immediacy of physical books, there’s no denying that digital eBooks have some advantages. Many of these advantages are obvious, but a less obvious one that we make a feature of here at KLP is the ability to update our books and release newer versions. It could be that we missed a typo, or some other error that escaped our attention during the proofing phase—a consequence of what is known in the publishing business as Muphry’s Law. Unlike with traditional print publications, these kinds of errors are trivial to fix and incorporate into an updated edition.
A less mundane reason we sometimes update our titles is to take the opportunity to include more content. Sometimes this is due to the natural evolution of our format, with new sections added, or design changes that we can implement in our back catalogue. At other times, we’re able to add new information, photos or other elements that extend the existing content of the book.
Of course, print publishers occasionally do this kind of thing too, but the key difference is that we can release our updated books immediately, rather than years later. But the best part of all, is that for existing purchasers, these updates are FREE! Yes, that’s right: free lifetime updates for any book you’ve purchased. Imagine a print publisher doing that!
Here’s How it Works
Whenever we publish an update to any of our books, we’ll announce it here, as well as our Facebook page, so it’s useful to subscribe to our updates via email if you haven’t already:
To access an updated version of a book you have purchased, you simply need to download a fresh copy, which will always be the latest version that has been published. There are two ways to do this. The first, and simplest, is to simply re-use the download links contained within the original order confirmation email. These links remain valid in perpetuity.
The second method is to download the updated book from the Downloads section of your profile. This requires you to have purchased it while logged in to your account, so that the purchase is then recorded as belonging to you, and is made available to you to download at any time. This doesn’t happen if you purchased the book as a guest—even if you already have an account.
Note that you don’t have to go looking for a specific version to download; there will always only ever be one version of each book available, and it will always be the latest. So, when a book gets updated, it replaces the previous version on the website, and when you download it again, it will be the updated version. The orange badges you see on the updated versions on our website are for marketing purposes only, and do not appear on the cover of the published books. In order to verify the version you have, check the Copyright page for the version number and date:
What If I Purchased as a Guest?
If you didn’t have an account at the time of the original purchase, or you forgot to log in prior to purchasing, then you won’t yet have access to a newly-updated book. This is relatively easy to fix, thankfully, but does require a bit of manual handling. Firstly, if you don’t have an account, create one! The benefits by now should be obvious.
Whether you’ve just created your account, or a particular purchase is not showing in your existing account, the next step is to contact me and let me know which book (or books) are affected, and the email address of your account, and I can then manually assign those guest purchases to your account. The next time you log in, they will magically appear in the Downloads section of your profile. Voilà!
It’s worth remembering that this facility is always available, so if you ever lose your existing copy of a book, or need it on a new device, you can simply re-download it at your leisure. And just to be clear: all new purchasers always get the latest version!
Look out for more updated books soon!
I’m still not clear on how exactly to download the updated version of the P-51D article. Do I need to “purchase” it again for free somehow? Can you please explain further?
Many thanks!
Hi William – the process is best explained in the article I recently published on the topic: https://www.klp.com.au/2021/10/18/free-book-updates/
But in a nutshell, no, you don’t need to purchase it again. If you created an account and were logged in to it at the time you made the purchase, then the updated version can be retrieved from the Downloads section of you profile. If you purchased it as a guest, then contact me at kevin@klp.com.au and we can sort it out.