Support for Indie Authors discussion

Has anyone done pre-orders for their books? How have you advertised it and did you get any results? My book is on pre-order for another couple of weeks and I'd like to know if there is more I can do to attempt to drive readers to place their orders.

Goodreads giveaway, social media posts, and subscriber newsletter are some basic ways to bring attention to your preorder :).

Marie, I've done the social media but I'm not sure I understand what you mean by subscriber newsletter.

Do you have a website or blog that people subscribed to with their email address? If so, you can send out a newsletter to your subscribers about your upcoming release. I mention it because I just listed a book for preorder myself and nearly forgot to tell my email subscribers :).

Not knowing your situation, I could be completely off with my following opinion. If that is the case, please ignore what I have to say :)

Preorders are very hard if you don't have an already established following. My first string of preorders were disappointing (to say the least, hahaha). Now that I have readers waiting for my next work, the case has dramatically changed.

My personal opinion (as far as trying to up future preorder #s) is to focus on reviews and finding loyal readers. Build your newsletter prescription and presence on social media. Or get creative and find the nitch, a group of people who can relate to your work.

I wish you luck!
India

I'm doing my first ever pre-order. Not that I expect any pre-orders. Well I have one so far, which in my opinion is better than none.
I've done it to have it ready with the SIA event. I was going to publish it already but didn't want to have the low price too long. Pre-orders at low price plus a few days after it goes live was the solution for me.
So while I can't tell you about results, I can tell you what I've done so far.
1- advertised on every free site that would accept a book without reviews.
2- paid for one site, and may pay for more if I can find some cheap ones that might have some results.
3- join SIA event (of course!)
4- organized a giveaway on Goodreads starting on the day of the release, which also coincide with SIA's event.
I've done giveaways with my other books. I had done it so the beginning and ending would match a free day on Amazon. I gave away more than a thousand that time. I'm not expecting anything near that number with my new release but I hope it will help the other two freebies.
5- I wished I had more ideas. Don't we all?


Oh I forgot to say that I made sure the pre-order copy was the final and finished version so I don't have to worry about missing the dead line. This way I can concentrate on promotions only without losing any sleep. Good luck which whatever you decide to do. It's always a gamble no matter what.

Marie wrote: "Do you have a website or blog that people subscribed to with their email address? If so, you can send out a newsletter to your subscribers about your upcoming release. I mention it because I just l..."

Marie,
I have a Word Press blog/website. It is not a personal domain, but one run by them.
I have not asked people to leave their email adresses nor do I know how that is done or whether I have the capability to do that. I certainly would like to explore this fuller. Can you reach me by my email, [email protected]?

India and G G, thanks for your answers. You both have much more experience with this. It shows. India, I completely understand that the process would be easier if one already had a following. I guess, for any new author, gaining an initial foothold is the hardest part. What genre of books do you all write, and I mean Marie, G G, and India? Would it be any help to read and write reviews for each other?
I'm currently offering a freebie with a preorder. I don't know how many preorders there have been so far. The only way I think I would know is if a reader sent me an email showing their receipt for the freebie. Is that how you do your giveaways for preorders? Otherwise, I'm hoping people have preordered without wanting the freebie. Is that wishful tbinking?

I think preorders work really well especially if you have a series. I just released the fourth book in my urban fantasy series and I had over a thousand preorders. The great thing about them is that you can start plugging your book early on social media and people that are interested have a link to use right away while their interest in the book is fresh. There's not much point of doing advance PR if they can't buy the book. Sure they may be interested, but will they remember to go buy it later if the release date is weeks away? Another thing I did, since you can only set a preorder for 90 days from release and there is more time than that between releases in my series, is I put a link at the back of each book so that readers can sign up for my newsletter to notified when the next preorder becomes available.

Thanks Lisa, but would you agree with India that until one creates a following of readers, it is difficult to garner preorders?

I've done pre-order, and I did have some pre-order. If you can do it, and advertise to your current fanbase (via mailing list), that will be your best bet. If you don't already have a fanbase, it's going to be a little more difficult getting pre-orders.

As an idea (untested by me), maybe talk to some local coffee shops about putting business card sized promo materials at the checkout counter. If they will, design a small, one sided business card with the pre-order information.

JAKe wrote: "Would it be any help to read and write reviews for each other? "

This is a violation of Amazon and Goodreads terms of service as well as against our group rules.

Christina,
I'm talking about honest reviews after reading each other's work. What is wrong with that?

Thomas,
Not a bad idea. Do you find a lot if people sit around coffee houses reading books?

I really like pre-order for more what Lisa said. It's great to have the orders come in (and that's all advertising plus following). But the best part is knowing for sure when your book will be out so you can really promote the hell out of it without the embarrassing indie book faux pas of promising the release and then having the distributor experience a malfunction that delays things. It's also a good amount of breathing room for finalizing everything and really going hard at promotion.

So, I guess my opinion is there's no harm in a pre-order, and the peace of mind, plus the potential for pre-sales makes it worthwhile.

I recently received a suggestion to couple the pre-order in with an evite to the book release party, which then spawned the idea of doing an online book release as well. Not a fully vetted idea yet, but thought i'd share the brainstorm.

Allison,
I completed the book many weeks ago and there is no further editing needed. It will be released on April 2 as planned. My difficulty, at least I think it is a difficulty, is to have readers preorder simply from my pounding FB, TWITTER, and my website with information about the preorder and combined giveaway opportunity.

Brian,
I don't know anything about release parties, online or otherwise. Could ypu give me a brief explanation?

JAKe wrote: "Christina,
I'm talking about honest reviews after reading each other's work. What is wrong with that?"

Review swaps are against Amazon's TOS, and they can get you in some prickly situations. So, while we can't eliminate them, we can stop them from being requested on the board, and point out that they violate TOS agreements.

Okay, I certainly will abide by the rules, but I still don't understand why an honest review would be frowned upon.

Exactly what Riley said and add that there is nothing honest about a swapped review. Amazon and Goodreads both have to follow the rules that are laid out by the FTC. It's not worth getting your account suspended or books taken down.

They might be honest reviews. But they're not necessarily unbiased ones. Review swaps tend to be seen as "gaming the system."
While we want reviews to help our sales, the reality is that reviews are not for our benefits, they're for readers.

Christina,
As I mentioned earlier, I do not plan on breaking the rule. I also was not advocating for any nefarious reviews. Why do you say that there cannot be anything honest about a review given by me to another author that I met on this post or vice versa? Perhaps you know some history that I am not aware of or perhaps it is purely a cynical nature. Maybe you could fill me in why this rule was made. I'd appreciate it.

JAKe wrote: "Okay, I certainly will abide by the rules, but I still don't understand why an honest review would be frowned upon."

Review swaps have too great a chance not to be "honest". Bob and Mary decide to do a review swap. Here are some potential things that could happen:

a) Bob reads Mary's book and loves it, giving it a five star review. Mary reads Bob's book and hates it, but gives him a five star review anyway. Since he was nice to her, she feels she needs to be nice back.

b) Bob hates Mary's book and gives it a one star review. Mary doesn't bother reading Bob's book and gives him a drive-by one star out of retaliation.

c) Bob reads Mary's book and gives her a review. Mary never gets around to reading Bob's book as, you know, other things come up.

Often times feelings come into play and soon a pact for "honest" reviews is forgotten.

Personally, I do enjoy seeing reviews from anyone, good or bad, whether I know the reviewer or not. But, I do not approach anyone and ask directly for reviews. I like them to be organic. I don't want people to feel obligated to review my work as then there is that potential that the review may be tainted. They may feel they can't be honest and give me a good review so they won't hurt my feelings. They may feel annoyed that I asked them for a review and give me a low star review just to shut me up. Yes, reviews come in slow this way. I may go weeks without getting a review. But, it's fine. Getting reviews is not what writing is about for me. And when I'm not asking for them, it's that much more exciting when they do come in.

Christina,
I think I understand a bit better now with Brian's explanation. Trust me, I was not trying to cause a problem. Rather, like any new author, I've been finding it hard to gather any steam. I was not looking for anyone to give me bogus publicity, only honest publicity. I'll stand down on this issue.

P.S. If you spend time on any Goodreads group that is made up mostly of readers, you will find that many of them feel strongly against review swaps and refuse to buy books from authors if they think the author is engaged in review swaps. Some actually will pick through an author's reviews, looking for signs of review swapping.

Dwayne,
Thanks for your comments. Intuitively I knew this would be the answer. I just believe I'm honest enough to not fall into this trap. Plus, constructive criticism, if given and accepted, can be a good thing. It could lift someone from mediocrity.

JAKe wrote: "I think I understand a bit better now with Brian's explanation. Trust me, I was not trying to cause a problem. Rather, like any new author, I've been finding it hard to gather any steam. I was not looking for anyone to give me bogus publicity, only honest publicity. I'll stand down on this issue. "

Trust me. Even some of us old authors would like to see some steam. But, it takes time and patience. Please understand, no one is trying to get you to "stand down". That makes it sound like we want to put you in a corner like a bad little boy. No, we're giving you advice to help you. Doing review swaps could give you a bad reputation or even have your accounts closed. We want to see everyone here succeed.

JAKe wrote: "Dwayne,
Thanks for your comments. Intuitively I knew this would be the answer. I just believe I'm honest enough to not fall into this trap."

And it's quite possible you could remain honest about it, but how do you know the person you're swapping with is going to remain honest? How do you know that they'll even bother reading your book?

JAKe wrote: "Thomas,
Not a bad idea. Do you find a lot if people sit around coffee houses reading books?"

I've found that quite a few people hang out in coffee shops in my area (Seattle and the surrounding cities), whether reading, working, talking, etc. Coffee shops are potentially fertile ground for exposure, but I have yet to test the idea of asking to put out some promo material since I've currently got a lot going on. It's on my list of things to do though.

JAKe wrote: "
Marie,
I have a Word Press blog/website. It is not a personal domain, but one run by them.
I have not asked people to leave their email adresses nor do I know how that is done or whether I have the capability to do that. I certainly would like to explore this fuller. Can you reach me by my email, [email protected]."

Hi Jake, unfortunately I am not the one to ask about Wordpress. I made a website through godaddy and bought their email marketing plan which keeps track of subscribers and helps me send out nice looking email newsletters. I know there are lots of authors who use Wordpress and have a sign up for their newsletter so it's probably just a matter of figuring out how to do it. I think it's called a plug in but again, I don't know much about Wordpress other than what I've heard through the grapevine. Good luck :).

JAKe wrote: "Thanks Lisa, but would you agree with India that until one creates a following of readers, it is difficult to garner preorders?"

Definitely the first book is hard, but still any presales you do are better than none and the preorder allows you to start getting the word out.

Dwayne wrote: "JAKe wrote: "I think I understand a bit better now with Brian's explanation. Trust me, I was not trying to cause a problem. Rather, like any new author, I've been finding it hard to gather any stea..."

Dwayne,
I wasn't using the "stand down" derogatorily on myself. I was just indicating that I now know and understand why the policy is there and not argue/I accept the rule as it is.

Marie wrote: "JAKe wrote: "
Marie,
I have a Word Press blog/website. It is not a personal domain, but one run by them.
I have not asked people to leave their email adresses nor do I know how that is done or whe..."
Thanks for the information, Marie.

Thomas wrote: "JAKe wrote: "Thomas,
Not a bad idea. Do you find a lot if people sit around coffee houses reading books?"

I've found that quite a few people hang out in coffee shops in my area (Seattle and the s..."
Thanks, Thomas. The reason I asked the question was that I don't routinely see people reading books, at least paperbacks or hardcovers. Maybe they are on their lap tops and phones. But thanks for the idea.

I did a pre-order and found it quite successful. What I did was tell people that if they planned to read my book, to get it now while it was 0.99,and if they planned to buy a paperback copy off of me in person, that I would give them an additional dollar discount if they bought the e-book version now, at 0.99, because then they would be able to leave Amazon verified reviews. And then I emailed my small email list and notified my followers on my blog about it. I made enough sales to end up in the bestseller list in Canada before publication and to end up in Hot New Releases which definitely boosted my sales.

C.L., what do you mean by "small" email list? And, by the way, thanks.

Lisa wrote: "JAKe wrote: "Thanks Lisa, but would you agree with India that until one creates a following of readers, it is difficult to garner preorders?"

Definitely the first book is hard, but still any presa..."

My experience is that it really is better to let reviews happen on their own. If reviews from Goodreads authors were removed from my books, half of my non 5 star reviews would be gone. Authors will either be harder or easier on another author.

Thanks, Tommy.