How you help authors the most

Every so often a kind reader will ask what helps me the most—paper, ebook, or audio—because they want to make sure they’re helping me out to the max. They dig the stories, want to read more, and so they ask, which is super nice of them. And usually I say do as you please—and I still say that! Because 1) I am delighted whenever anyone chooses to read or listen my stories and 2) as long as you pay for it from a reputable retailer I am getting paid for it too. Seriously, friends: Whenever and wherever you buy, in whatever format, thank you so much, you’re the best. The difference in what I make in audio or paper or ebook is literally pennies, so no worries, you do your thing, enjoy the story, and I’ll be grateful.

But there is an answer to that question—”What helps the most?” Again, it all helps and it’s all good, but the thing that helps the most? Pre-ordering the hardcover edition. And it doesn’t matter where you pre-order it from—online or in a chain store or through your local indie.

Why does it help more? For a list o’ reasons, mostly having to do with writing the next book:

1. Pre-orders count toward the first week of sales, and it’s that first week that’s most likely to put an author on the NYT bestseller list. The list is important because it opens doors and gets your future proposals considered quickly; it’s proof that you have an audience. And if you hit it once, the publisher might put some extra marketing mojo behind the next release. It can help an author not only sustain a career but build it up.

2. Since I’m genre fiction and there are a ton of titles coming out every  month, bookstores with limited shelf space have to pick and choose what to order. Some might order only a single copy of my book, or (eek!) none at all. That makes it difficult for people to discover my work (or the work of any other author). Pre-orders therefore help tremendously in this area. Bookstores obviously want to order titles that will sell well, and if my publisher can point to my pre-orders and say LOOKIT THIS IS ALREADY SELLING they are more likely to order some copies. Having more copies on the shelf means it’s more likely someone will discover me by accident; if I’m not on the shelf they can’t discover me at all. So your pre-order helps me reach more readers, and more readers means I will probably get to write more books.

3. Good pre-order numbers can push small or moderate orders from bookstores into larger orders. And again, this is a discoverability thing. Say Bookstore X was planning on ordering two copies of SHATTERED and hiding them in the SF/F section. But then they get ten pre-orders and realize that this title might be worth stocking a bit more densely. So they put in an order for twenty—ten to cover their pre-orders and ten for the shelf. They display it face-out, maybe put a few copies on an end cap with high traffic, and now browsers are more likely to get caught up in Atticus and go HEY WHAT’S THAT and pick up my book. And then they’ll figure out that this is book seven of a series they’ve never heard of before and now they have a delightful binge-read of Atticus and Oberon ahead of them. And that all happened because of pre-orders.

Discoverability is kind of a big deal these days. Shelf space is shrinking—fewer total bookstores out there and some are selling lots of toys and stuff instead of books. Add to that the fact that online discoverability is, shall we say, less than optimal, and that means publishers are really jockeying for space now. Pre-orders are vital to making sure my book gets in front of potential readers.

I didn’t know any of this until I got published myself. Now that I do know it, I tend to pre-order books I want to read quite often, because I was going to buy it anyway, and pre-ordering is quite honestly the best thing I can do to make sure I get to read more books by my favorite writers. Books I’ve pre-ordered: CIBOLA BURN by James S.A. Corey, CURSED MOON by Jaye Wells, THE CRIMSON CAMPAIGN by Brian McClellan, THE CLOCKWORK DAGGER by Beth Cato, HELLSBLOOD BRIDE by Chuck Wendig, and, you know, anything Cherie Priest writes forever because CHERIE PRIEST. Her next one is called MAPLECROFT: THE BORDEN DISPATCHES and I have pre-ordered the hell out of it.

So yeah. Pre-ordering the paper copy helps the most. Telling your friends and family about the books you love is simply spectacular. But I’m grateful to quiet readers who keep their joys a secret too. All reading is good reading, whenever it happens and in whatever format you enjoy. Thanks for that.

Just FYI, Brian McClellan also wrote a post about this same topic, which you can find here, and Scott Sigler wrote about it as well.