What You Need to Know About Pre-Orders (For Hybrid or Self-Published Print-On-Demand Books)

As an author of a hybrid published or self-published print-on-demand book, you may be wondering if pre-orders are important or how they can fit into your overall strategy for your book. 

If you���ve chosen hybrid publishing and a print-on-demand distribution, your publisher most likely has an established process and point-of-view about pre-order campaigns. In most cases, hybrid publishers do not set up print-on-demand titles for pre-order campaigns, or, if they do, it���s for a limited time or for the ebook only. There���s no sales or distribution advantage to a pre-order campaign for these books because retailers will not be ordering copies in advance of the publication date.

If your hybrid published book does not have a pre-order period, you can instead expect that your publisher will load your files a few days before your planned publication date/launch date. Your book may be available before your launch date, which gives time for Amazon���s algorithms to recognize your product, ensuring that it will show in categories. This may take a few days, and you may feel frustrated by the uncertainty of this process.

There are, unfortunately, a few downsides to this approach: 

You���ll miss the opportunity of adding your retailer links to the book page on your website in advance of launch, which may cause a last minute scramble. If people are curious about and anxiously awaiting your book, it may not seem as real until it���s available through retailers. If you���re pitching for podcast interviews or other media coverage, the journalist won���t be able to find your book through an online search. 

For these reasons, I typically recommend that self-published authors set their books up for pre-order. 

Currently, Amazon���s Kindle Direct Publishing does not allow for print books to be set up for pre-order, only ebooks. As a result, authors who want to set their print books up for pre-order typically select to distribute their books through IngramSpark. This can be a clunky process, sadly, but should allow you to have your book widely distributed to online retailers with the option to pre-order both the print and ebook editions of your book.

Once your book is available for pre-order, we recommend that you:

Add your retailer links to your website Incorporate your retailer links into your social posts, driving people to varying points of purchaseUpdate your social profile links to promote the pre-order call-to-action 

The value of pre-orders for most hybrid or self-published authors is access to retailer links so you can finalize your website and other marketing materials. Once you���ve added your book links to your website and social channels, you���ve established that your book is credible. 

After those assets are set up, you should turn your attention to preparing for launch week. It���s important to clarify that, for a print-on-demand title, I recommend a greater focus on first-week book sale promotion, especially if your goal is gaining bestseller status on Amazon. Launch week is when you should highly engage your network to purchase.

It���s better to have high first-week book sales than high pre-orders. If you spend a lot of energy on getting people to pre-order the book, you may not have enough first-week sales to give you the momentum you need to get the bestseller banner in your category on Amazon. There���s no advantage to you as a self-published, print-on-demand author to get those early orders. 

You can read more about the steps to follow to work toward bestseller status on Amazon here.��

Setting up your self-published or hybrid book for pre-order offers value in building credibility and momentum; however, your emphasis should be on the first-week sales in order to achieve bestseller status on Amazon and further improve sales.

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