Support for Indie Authors discussion

Hello everyone,

(Hope I put this in the right place)

I was wondering how long people have put up their book for preorder before releasing. A few months? A week? You see, my second book is well on its way and I'm really not sure how long to put it up for preorder.

My guess is it varies but I'd like to know what worked well for people and what not.

I forget how long I had mine up for pre-order. I think it was like 4 weeks. I had some pre-order sales, which was awesome. Not sure if that really matters.

Hi Briony, I just had 2 books released on March 1st. I submitted them in December 2016 and sent final draft in February.

Hiya, Briony!

My first pre-order was for 3 weeks and my current one is for 6 weeks.

The good thing about a longer pre-order is that you show up on Amazon's "Hot New Releases" for that extra time (eligible for 3 months after your actual date of publish). The bad thing about a longer pre-order is if your readers all order at the beginning, your rank peaks too early to take full advantage of pages read on KU. Like, it's ideal to have the best visibility on release day if that makes no sense at all? LOL

Personally, I found I peaked between days 5 to 7 of a pre-order, so I'm gonna do 5 days from now on. But, of course, I think you gotta find what works best for your books/audience cuz it's definitely different for everyone.

Hope that helps some! Best of luck!!

Hugs,
Ann

I also found out recently that the number of books you sell on pre-order ALL count as a sale on the first day your book releases. That means, if you have a longer pre-order and say your 15 orders day one turn into 35 or heck, a couple hundred when your pre-orders are added in, then your release day looks much stronger, and your sales numbers look better on Amazon. Hope that helps!

Hi Jordan, that's what I thought too, but they might have changed it. On my last two preorders, the books each had a rank in the Kindle store as soon as the preorders started coming in. However the rank did not change significantly on the day of release, even though all sales counted toward that day on the sales report.

I've tried many different time frames. A week, to a month, to 6 weeks. I, at this point, have no rhyme or reason to why I pick these. My month one was pretty decent and I got the most preorders I've ever had. It was also book two and there was a promo event at that time and I had book one on sale. I think that really helped gain preorders.

My longest preorder (2.5 months) was my best. My worst only had about 3 weeks. So...I guess it can vary?

Jordan wrote: "I also found out recently that the number of books you sell on pre-order ALL count as a sale on the first day your book releases. That means, if you have a longer pre-order and say your 15 orders d..."

Same as Marie, I found this to not be the case when I set up my pre-order for the maximum 3-months out, thinking why WOULDN'T anyone take advantage of this? But in addition to not getting a ranking spike on release day, the long lag time actually wound up killing a lot of my initial buzz. Next time around I won't set pre-orders for more than a month beforehand.

Lynn wrote: "Jordan wrote: "I also found out recently that the number of books you sell on pre-order ALL count as a sale on the first day your book releases. That means, if you have a longer pre-order and say y..."

Good advice Lynn and Marie!!

Lynn wrote: "Jordan wrote: "I also found out recently that the number of books you sell on pre-order ALL count as a sale on the first day your book releases. That means, if you have a longer pre-order and say y..."

That's good to know! It does seem like amazon makes it quite hard to do pre-orders successfully...

I'd think do pre-order as early as you can (3 months?) if you know the book will be ready by then.

The reader side of me likes to see that another book is coming out soon. So, I'm more likely to start a series if I see the author is still writing and promising more books in the next couple months. So, I bet putting books up for pre-order (especially in a series) help sell earlier books.

Marie wrote: "Hi Jordan, that's what I thought too, but they might have changed it. On my last two preorders, the books each had a rank in the Kindle store as soon as the preorders started coming in. However the..."

Nah, Miss Marie, they've not changed it. Still the same-same for my current preorder. The "sales" count and affect rankings immediately when people preorder but we just don't get the royalties until their CC's are charged the day of release.

Jordan wrote: "That's good to know! It does seem like amazon makes it quite hard to do pre-orders successfully..."

Hmm. Amazon actually does help us quite a bit by ranking preorders/new releases on separate "Hot New Releases" lists. In my limited experience, the added visibility is really, reeeally helpful! That said, I'm with Miss Lynn where the lag time totally killed my initial buzz.

Methinks you just gotta find your sweet spot. While I have more success with much shorter preorders, I bet lots of authors find the opposite to be true...? Maybe? LOL

I had a bad experience doing a preorder on Amazon. I think I set it about a month out but when the book was finished and I tried to upload the final version 4 days prior to release, the book was locked. I called Amazon in a panic and they said they couldn't unlock it even though I was trying to upload it within their specified timeframe. I asked them to change the release date and they said they couldn't. So everyone who preordered got a partial book. I will never do a preorder book again!

You can do a pre-order with a finished product. That is what I am doing. I don't plan on uploading any new version be it now or four days before hand, but it gives me time to plan for promotions and all.