Pre-Orders Through Mark Coker’s Smashwords Can Benefit Both Readers & Writers

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When I first read Mark Coker’s blog post about pre-orders, I thought it was a wonderful idea.  I only had two weeks until I was ready to publish my second book, so I moved my publishing date forward by a month so I could try the pre-order technique for six weeks.

The book I was ready to publish was the second in my Detective Annie Avants series, Damage Control.  The first book, Cause of Death, was doing okay, but nothing spectacular.  I needed a way to perk things up for the second book.

Mark Coker, the founder of SmashWords, has just released a SlideShare presentation that outlines the pre-order strategy.  I’ve embedded the SlideShare below.  The main points are as follows:

How does the pre-order system work:When you place your book in pre-order status on SmashWords, it will be listed as such at Apple, Barnes & Noble, and KoboThis allows readers to reserve their copy before the book is actually released for publicationThe customer will not be billed for the book until the actual release dateWhat are the benefits to you, the writer, and to your reader?Sales will build up for your book before it is even publishedWhen the reader is on your book page, and sees the pre-order, they can act then. You have their attentionSince pre-order sales for Apple and Kobo are credited to your account on the day of publication, there is a good chance the number of sales at one time can boost you into the bestseller listsWhen you get on a retailer’s bestseller list, they are likely to promote your book at a higher levelSome things to keep in mind:Success isn’t guaranteed with a pre-order. There are steps you have to take to guarantee your best results. The first criteria, of course, is writing the best book you can.The timing of your pre-order is important. You should allow 4-12 weeks if possible; however, a short time is still worth the effort

The SlideShare program continues on to give you marketing and promotion tips so your pre-order campaign will be successful.

Here’s the SlideShare: Hit the Ebook Bestseller Lists with Preorders: A Guide to Preorder Strategy from Smashwords, Inc. My Experience with Pre-Order and some suggestions:

Keep in mind that during your pre-order period, no one will be able to download your book. Your submission doesn’t have to be edited and revised to perfection. However, keep in mind the following:

Your page count should be close to what the final book will beAll of your front matter must be included and perfectThe % you are offering as a sample should be as close to finished as you can make itHere’s what I did:

I published the pre-order on SmashWords and then downloaded the sample. That showed me what was included. This was a good idea because my first sample included a huge note to myself that I wouldn’t want the readers to see! I was able to quickly revise the book and resubmit the book to SmashWords. You can do this up until right before the book is published.

I mainly use Twitter as my social media, so I set up a schedule of Tweets using Buffer with various hash tags that had to do with my genre and novel. This worked well and I received a lot of retweets.

What will I do with my next book in this series?My previous pre-order was for the second book in my Detective Annie Avants seriesThe first draft of my third novel, Southern Secrets, is almost finished. I plan to put it into the pre-order program within the next few days and leave it there for two monthsAs soon as Southern Secrets is in the pre-order system, I will revise the last pages of the first two novels to give a link to the third novel’s book page at SmashWords, as well as the links to the pre-order pages at Apple, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo

Then, I’ll sit back and watch what happens – and begin serious work on the fourth novel of the series!

Pre-Orders Through Mark Coker’s Smashwords Can Benefit Both Readers & Writers is a post from: Renee Benzaim, Writer