SFA 042 – Pre-Orders: How, When, and Why to Use Them to Increase Sales

On this week’s show, Jo, Andrea, and Lindsay discussed the reasons you may want to use pre-orders on Amazon and the other stores. They mentioned some of the benefits as well as potential pitfalls and answered a ton of listener questions on the subject.

Before we jumped into the topic, Lindsay mentioned that she’s going through Brandon Sanderson’s Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy 2020 Lectures on YouTube. His whole college course is being streamed up there this year, and you may find it useful, even if you’re not a SFF writer, because he discusses plotting, character journeys, short story writing, traditional and indie publishing, and more.

Pre-Orders an Overview:

You can now set up an “assetless” pre-order up to 12 months in advance on most of the major store platforms and through most of the distributors. All you need is the blurb. You don’t even need the cover art (though it’s a good idea if you have it).

Benefits of Pre-Orders:

They allow you to start racking up sales long before the launch. If you are wide, and you’re going to try to hit the USA Today or New York Times Bestseller list, a long pre-order is a huge advantage (note: you can’t hit these lists if you’re exclusive to Amazon, because they require reporting from at least two stores).
You can potentially get a big payday on release day.
You can lock in buyers while they’re still excited about the last book.
In some stores, pre-orders count toward your release day ranking and give a boost in visibility (this is not true on Amazon).
Pre-orders ensure the book goes live on the day you want in all the stores (if wide). Every now and then, Amazon has hiccups in the publishing process when you’re uploading manually at the last minute.
Pre-orders allow you to start tinkering with ad copy and seeing what converts, and then you can turn up the spend on the best performing ads once the book releases (note ads don’t convert as well on pre-orders, so you may not want to spend a lot).
As mentioned in a prior episode, pre-orders allow you to get started on an audiobook through ACX earlier since you need the book to be listed in the Amazon store to claim it with ACX.
Pre-orders are eligible for certain promotional opportunities, most notably BookBub’s pre-order announcement email (pay to play).
Pre-orders give you a link to share with readers or to place at the end of a previous book before the release.
They help keep you accountable if deadlines are the best way for you to be productive.
They keep things organized and allow you to do some tedious work up front – some authors set up a whole year of pre-orders at the start of the year, then go by that for the rest of the year.
They give you a longer period to make money on a book before it becomes part of your backlog.
They allow you to build hype easier – having proof that the book will actually exist helps you get the word out.

Disadvantages of Pre-Orders

People are less likely to buy a pre-order — no instant gratification (advertising dollars may be less effective).
On Amazon specifically, having sales trickle in as pre-orders can dilute your launch juice because there are fewer sales left to get during release week.
According to David Gaughran in a past talk on the popularity list (which fuels the recommendation engine) on Amazon, pre-orders don’t seem to be counted or at least aren’t counted equally to sales of active books, so you might not get much of a visibility boost from pre-order sales. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbPkBU6E5xg)
If a pre-order of the next book in the series is available, readers may do that as their one action when they finish the current book, as opposed to signing up for your newsletter or leaving a review. If there’s no word yet on the next book, they’re more likely to jump onto your newsletter.
If you are pressed for time, a pre-order is a semi-solid deadline that can be a source of stress. There are penalties for failing to meet a pre-order deadline.
If you don’t do assetless pre-orders, but instead use an incomplete version of the book as a placeholder, there have been instances of the wrong version of the book going out (this is rare).
Price can be more sensitive with a pre-order: a lot of readers are trained and used to $0.99 pre-orders, mainly (and especially) if it’s the first book in a series.

Listener questions that we answered:

Scot: Is it verified that preorders count at half value for rank boost on launch day?
Timmo: What kind of pre-order limited bonuses do you have good experience employing?
Tyler: Is it a good idea to do a preorder for your first book?
Andrea: If you’re releasing a book in a series, how would you coordinate sales/promos for other books in the series? What if it’s a new series or standalone?
Sabrina: How do you advertise pre-orders effectively?
Richard: What approaches outside the normal (email list, increased ad spend on Amazon/Facebook) have worked for you?

We had so much to say and so many listener questions that we decided to break here. Next week, look for a Part 2 episode on pre-orders.

If you want to be able to ask questions for future topic episodes, make sure you’re a member of the Six Figure Authors Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/504063143655523/