Preorders are one of the most effective and, surprisingly, most underutilized tools in an indie author’s toolbox. In a January 2024 D2D blog post, Mark Coker, D2D’s Chief Strategy Officer and former Smashwords CEO, shared striking sales data about ebooks published through Smashwords between January and June, 2023.
During those six months, only 16% of new titles were released as preorders, yet the preorder books earned, on average, over five times as much in sales income during the full year of 2023 compared to non-preorder books.
If you’re looking for an easy, free and proven way to make your next book stand out, look no further. We’ll unravel what preorders are and how to implement a preorder strategy to help your next launch generate more buzz, excitement and sales.
What’s a preorder?
A preorder is when you provide an advanced listing of your upcoming book at online retailers prior to your book’s official release date. This means your upcoming book can secure online shelf space and begin accumulating sales for days, weeks or even months before it’s available to the public.
Major online retailers, including Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble and Kobo will allow you to list a preorder for up to 12 months ahead of its release.
Think of a preorder like a product reservation system. When an excited reader purchases your book on preorder, they plop down their credit card just as they would for a book that’s already available to the public. The difference is that with a preorder purchase, the reader can’t access the book, and their credit card isn’t charged, until the book is publicly available. The fact that readers’ credit cards aren’t charged until release day can significantly boost a preorder book’s sales ranking, because all those credit cards will be charged on a single day.
How preorders can make book launches more successful
To understand how preorders can help make book launches more successful, let’s take a moment to talk about bestseller lists.
Bestseller lists, whether they’re produced by retail stores or media, are based in large part on sales volume. The most recent sales are weighed much more heavily than sales that occurred in the past. So, books that have sold in the last 24 hours will factor in more prominently than books that were sold in the last two weeks or two months. This means that your next book can have a concentration of up to 12 months’ worth of sales all hitting on day one of its release, causing a significant spike in your sales ranking—and your book’s visibility—on release day! Pretty cool, huh?
How to plan your preorder
First, break out your publishing calendar and try to maximize your runway. Just like an airliner needs a long runway to gain enough speed for liftoff, the same is true for successful preorder campaigns. The more time you can allocate for your preorder, the more preorders you can potentially accumulate prior to release day.
If you’re concerned about not having the completed manuscript or cover art, otherwise known as the book’s assets, it’s not a problem for ebook preorders. With assetless, or “metadata-only” ebook preorders, you won’t need the book’s assets until 10 business days ahead of release.
Be sure to offer your preorder as a print-on-demand (POD) paperback too! D2D Print enables you to set up a preorder for POD books for up to 12 months. Note that with POD preorders, there is no assetless option. You’ll need to upload the final manuscript and cover art when setting up a POD preorder. A lot of authors set up their assetless ebook preorder first, then add their POD preorder when their manuscript and cover art are ready.
If the thought of setting a release date that’s months away is causing you to break out in hives, we get it. We only recommend setting a preorder for projects you are certain you will complete. Also, rest assured that you have the flexibility to change your release date if needed.
It’s a good idea to slot in a little buffer time in case Murphy’s Law attempts to derail your plans. So, if you’re pretty sure your project will be complete in six months, consider adding an extra month…just in case!
If you finish early, you can always move your release ahead. Your readers will love you even more if you move the release up, but they could be disappointed if you have to push it back.
Preorder marketing and promotion – 5 Tips
- Tip 1: Plan a multi-part, multi-week (or multi-month) preorder campaign. One of the reasons why preorders are so effective is because you can capture a sale at the very moment you capture a reader’s interest. So, flex your creative muscle to keep it interesting and engaging as you approach release day. We’ve seen some of our bestselling authors use contests, giveaways, newsletter swaps, blog tours and cover reveals as marketing events.
- Tip 2: Mobilize your fans as your street team and provide incentives to get them involved. As an indie author one of your greatest superpowers is your ability to engage with your readers. Don’t be shy about asking them to help you promote the preorder for your next release, because they’d probably love to help you! Make it worth their time though by offering cool, or unique incentives. Some authors include fans’ names in the acknowledgements section of their book, and others provide free private Smashwords Coupons as an incentive.
- Tip 3: Offer special, limited-time discount pricing for your preorder. If you plan to list your new ebook at $7.99 when it releases, consider offering the preorder for $6.99 or even $5.99. Communicate to your fanbase that the price will go up soon after the book is released. This ensures your closest readers are rewarded by guaranteeing them the lowest price. It also provides a sense of urgency that persuades readers to act quickly.
- Tip 4: Update the back matter on all your existing ebook titles. If you write series or have a deep backlist, you have an advantage because you can leverage your existing books to promote your upcoming book. With D2D’s automated end matter tool, updating the back matter on all the ebooks you’ve previously published with us is simple. All you need to do is update the backmatter on one book, usually it’s your upcoming book. We’ll automatically update the backmatter on all your existing titles and send these updates to our global retail and library network. Our automated end matter tool—which also updates front matter content—facilitates adding non-story content to your books such as “Also-by” lists, author bios, publisher bios, copyright information and book “teasers.” Pro tip: Be sure to hyperlink your end matter book lists using our free Universal Book Links (UBLs) tool from D2D’s sister site Books2Read.com. If you’ve never created a UBL with Books2Read, this video will walk you through the process. Your D2D login information also works for Books2Read.
- Tip 5: Tell D2D’s promotions team about your preorder. If you believe your upcoming book is deserving of extra promotional support, let us know! Log into your D2D account and filling out the D2D Promo Form. We’d love to get your book in front of the merchandising managers at our retail partners. Some of the things they’ll want to know is:
- Your author track record. Are you a bestselling or award-winning author?
- Is your upcoming book part of a series, and if so, is the series performing well?
- Have you done preorders before that performed well?
- Are you co-authoring the book with another author?
- Is the preorder for an anthology or box set with multiple authors?
- Anything else you think we should know? Tell us!
Ultimately, you get out of your preorders what you put into them. With a well-planned and executed preorder, you can elevate your book launch from good to great.
Happy Writing!