Pre-orders: An Update

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

As I wrote in this post in April 2015 (a post which landed me immediately on a couple of different podcasts to elaborate), I have not been much of a fan of pre-orders.

Why I originally set-up a pre-order

I started a pre-order experiment last October.  At the time, I had every reason to expect that the experiment would be a success.  I’d heard good things about setting up pre-orders on podcasts and from distributors like Mark Coker at Smashwords and Draft2Digital.

Problems during my pre-order

However, I’ve learned I’m apparently too high-strung  to have a ten-month pre-order. I fretted over delivering the book on time during an unusually busy 10 month period (and as I wrote two other books to keep on schedule).  Plus, I was receiving very little income during the pre-order period, despite having a lower price on the release as a pre-release.

It also bothered me that readers seemed confused by the pre-order. I received emails from readers who didn’t understand why they couldn’t yet read the book and why it wasn’t available for pre-order on Amazon.

The reason, FYI, that it wasn’t available on Amazon is because they mark each sale toward the title’s ranking that day instead of allowing the pre-order sales to accumulate and positively impact visibility/ranking on the release day.

The pre-order directly before the release

I never know exactly how long it will take me to write a book, but for some reason it took me very little time to write Cruising for Murder.  It was done in slightly over two months. And, as I suspected, I immediately became antsy once the betas and freelance editor were finished with the manuscript; I was ready to release it.

That was on August 6th. The release date was set for August 20th. I wasn’t sure if I could set the release earlier on Draft2Digital.  I was delighted to discover that I could. I immediately changed the release to August 11th.  I got urgent notices that they needed the final copy right away, so I quickly uploaded the manuscript and back matter.

I abruptly decided to try to set up a pre-order on Amazon for that same five day period. I figured that whatever sales I made in that short pre-order period wouldn’t be enough to mess up my ranking for the first day.

But I wasn’t sure I even could set up a pre-order on Amazon in such a short amount of time.  The final version, according to Amazon, must be uploaded ten days before publication: “Your final version must be uploaded and republished at least 10 days before the release date you set, with the last day for upload starting at midnight, U.S. Eastern time. For example, if you were releasing a book on September 20, you would need to upload and republish it by 11:59 PM Eastern time on September 9 (4:59 AM UTC the following day).”

However,  when I pulled up the window for arranging the pre-order, it allowed me to set the 11th as long as I went ahead and immediately uploaded the final manuscript.

Sales

At Draft2Digital in the week leading up to the release, I had zero sales until the 10th (the day before the launch), when I saw 16 sales.  The next day I had 43 more (these are non-Amazon retailers…Nook, iBooks, etc.)

At Amazon, it was a similar story. Zero sales until the 10th, when I had 33 and then I had 121 on the release day.

So…do readers procrastinate? Would they rather buy a book when they can actually read it?  I can’t blame them because I think I’m that type of reader, myself.

The good things I can say about pre-orders:

Everything was in place on release day.  The retailers were simultaneously ready to sell. Once I upload the final manuscript, I have time to do all the other pre-launch things that I need to do.
When the book released on Amazon, the ‘also-boughts,’ the list of recommended reads that Amazon provides readers populated immediately.  So my book was showing up as a suggestion right away.
I had 3 reviews within 3 days of release. I think that may speak to the fact that the books were delivered on launch day which may have given my most avid readers the chance to read it right away.

Additional notes:

If I had to do it again, I’d make the pre-order period much shorter.

I’d set it about a week out and I’d upload it to both Amazon and Draft2Digital/Smashwords.  Then I’d announce the pre-order in my newsletter.

Not only that, but I’d upload the book to both PODs CreateSpace and Ingram the week before the release and allow them to (usually slowly) go through pre-production approval and become available for order, even prior to the release of the digital copies.

Have you tried pre-orders?  How did they work for you?

An update on how pre-orders worked for one author:
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