First Editions

[joanne0012]

This discussion has been confusing two publishing terms:  "edition" and 
"printing."  

If changes are made to the substance of the book (such as correcting wand-
emergence order), then that's a new edition.  BUT the rows of numbers in the 
front of the book don't refer to editions, but rather to printings of the same 
edition.  So a book could be the nineteenth printing of the first edition if those 
numbers in front so indicate.  

In the bookselling world, the most valuable are usually called "First/First", that 
is, first printing of the first edition.  When we buy our copies of Book Five later 
this month, we'll almost certainly all get first editions, but they might not all be 
first printings.