Amazon Book Pre-Order Strategy for Ebook Authors
Only about 15 percent of indie authors do pre-orders. Yet those 15 percent of authors are seeing the benefits. They know something the newbies and the novices don’t:
pre-orders = more book sales.
As Mark Coker, founder of the ebook retailer Smashwords once said,
If you release your next book as a pre-order, you will sell more books than you would otherwise. . . . [B]ooks born as pre-orders take an outsize share of the market. Pre-orders are a sales magnet.
If you’re self-publishing an ebook, it’s a great idea to set-up a pre-order for that book.
What are book pre-orders? Why are book pre-orders important? How do amazon book pre-orders work? And what are some pre-order strategy tips for authors on kdp and elsewhere?
Much more on book pre-orders below, and specific information for Amazon KDP pre-orders after that.
What is a pre-order?
A pre-order is when you make a book available for purchase before its official release date—typically a week to a year in advance.
Readers can buy the book before the release date. When the book is released to them, their credit card will be charged.
Some retailers require you to have entered into their system at least a preliminary version of all your book information, your cover, and your book interior. Depending on the retailer, you can continue to make updates 3 days to 10 days before the official release of the book.
On some retailers’ sites, you can set up an “assetless pre-order,” also known as a “metadata-only pre-order.” That means you only need a title and a description. It’s a good idea to have a cover image up, though. Covers sell books.
Paperback books published through Amazon KDP are not eligible for pre-orders.
It is possible to publish a paperback or hardcover through IngramSpark and have it available via pre-order.
Pre-orders are more common and books available as pre-orders account for a larger percentage of overall sales for all new releases in romance, historical fiction, and YA and teen fiction. Pre-orders are less common and account for a smaller share of overall sales in science fiction.
Overall, pre-orders are less common and account for a smaller share of overall sales in nonfiction. I suspect that’s because when people have a problem and need a solution, they don’t want to wait to get that solution.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do a pre-order for a nonfiction book. It just means you’ll see less of an impact on overall sales than you would if you were writing, say, in historical fiction.
Why are book pre-orders important?
There are many benefits to offering a pre-order.
Reasons to do a pre-order
Your book will be available—when you want it to be available, where you want it to be available.
When you press the “go live” button on Amazon to activate your book, it can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days to be available. But with a pre-order, you can guarantee that at the moment you want it to be available, it will be available.
A pre-order ensures that your ebook is available from multiple retailers—all on the same day.
By setting up a pre-order, you can ensure that all retailers will have time to process your book in advance of the sales date and it will go on sale on the same day at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Smashwords—or wherever it will be sold.
Even when a book is only sold on Amazon, having a pre-order up for at least a few days is a good idea, because it will be available when you and your readers expect it to be.
Pre-orders are a way to capture sales from your most enthusiastic fans (who are more likely to leave reviews and buy your other or future books).
With a pre-order, you have a date set, and you can plan all your marketing efforts around that date.
A pre-order gives you time to build excitement and anticipation around your upcoming book release. Every time you then talk about your book, people will be able to buy it.
You can get a head-start on your marketing—and sell more books in the short-term and the long-term.
You can create content (with your pre-order link included) and begin to gain in Google’s search engine algorithm. That content will drive people to the pre-order, and you will increasingly get more views and more sales. You make it possible for more people to see your content in the future and for more people to buy your book before and after the release date, by adopting this strategy.
A pre-order gives you a deadline for getting things done. You know that you have 3 to 10 ten days before the publish date, depending on the retailer.
Pre-orders account for a large share of bestselling self-published titles, as mentioned earlier in this article.
There are Amazon Author page benefits to setting up a pre-order.
Setting up a pre-order ensures that your book will be on your Amazon Author page (and that you can create your Amazon Author page) before your book officially launches.
If you don’t set up a pre-order and you’re a first-time author, you won’t be able to set up your Amazon Author page in advance. And whether you’re a first-time author or not, not the book can take up to 5 days to appear on your author page. So not setting up a pre-order hurts your visibility and discoverability on Amazon.
And if anyone has followed you on Amazon (requested to be notified of new releases) they will get notified once your pre-order is up, not once it’s already been released.
You need to have a title available on Amazon (or at least listed on Amazon) to start an ACX audiobook.
If audiobook sales are important to you, or you want your audiobook to release around the same time as your ebook, then a pre-order is necessary. Even still, you may have to move the ebook pre-order date to synch it with the audiobook release date. But you’ll at least be able to start the ACX audiobook process sooner if you have a pre-order going.
A pre-order (and sold books) generates “also-boughts.”
Once readers start buying your book on pre-order, Amazon will start to generate “also boughts”—books that are similar to yours. This might sway readers who are “just browsing” to buy your book.
Pre-orders make series more appealing to readers.
A pre-order on a series makes the entire series more appealing to readers because they see that you are continuing the series.
A pre-order gives you time to adjust your categories before the release date.
With your first sale, Amazon will display the categories for your book. Having a pre-order gives you time to change your categories or request additional ones before launch. (You can also alter your keywords and even your book description, or add endorsements and “editorial reviews”) to make sure your book is the way you want it by the release date.
Since Amazon KDP doesn’t currently offer paperback pre-orders, most seasoned indie authors will have their ebook on pre-order and then publish their paperback or other addition several days to a week before the official release of their ebook.
A pre-order allows you to set up and test out ads before the book launches.
Ads may not be super-successful with pre-orders because people tend not to be as interested in an ad for something they can’t buy right then and there.
Still, though, pre-orders offer authors running Amazon ads a head-start on collecting data and testing things out before the release date.
Having a pre-order makes you eligible for a special promotion with BookBub.
If you don’t know what this is, that’s okay. If you do know what BookBub is, great. The key thing is BookBub can send out an email to everybody that follows you announcing the presence of a pre-order. Again, a pre-order gives your book more exposure.
Reasons not to do a pre-order
A pre-order decreases your sales rank on day on Amazon.
If your book is only available on Amazon, your sales rank will be lower—it will be spread out.
A pending deadline can be stressful.
While you can push back the publication date (Amazon used to, but no longer penalizes authors by forbidding future pre-orders), you may alienate your fans nonetheless.
And if your ebook is available through Kindle Unlimited, that won’t help Kindle Unlimited readers won’t spring for your pre-order.
Pre-orders mean less in some genres.
As you read earlier, for whatever reason, pre-orders aren’t much of a thing in many nonfiction genres. If people want help with something—relationships, parenting, etc., they’re not likely to wait.
Pre-orders work better when you’re a known commodity, or when your book is part of a series.
It’s not a bad idea to set up a pre-order with your first book, though. But pre-orders are often more useful for more experienced authors.
If you’re not able to commit to a publication date in advance, then you shouldn’t do a pre-order.
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Pre-orders mean different things for authors on Amazon KDP vs Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo
How do Amazon book pre-orders work?
Amazon calculates sales rank based on when sales happen. In other words, Amazon gives your rank a boost when a person pre-orders, meaning you’ll have a lower first-day spike in your sales rank. If your goal is to rank highly on release date, set a shorter pre-order on Amazon. A longer Amazon pre-order will flatten out your spike.
If your goal is to hopefully climb in the bestseller rankings, it’s possible to do that with a pre-order on Apple Books and Barnes & Noble. All pre-orders accumulate and “hit” on the official release date.
The way bestseller ranking is calculated on Kobo is somewhere in between Amazon and the others.
Pre-order Strategy and Tips for Authors
Consider this, if your book will be available through multiple retailers:
Set a longer pre-order on Apple Books and Barnes & Noble Press than on Amazon or Kobo, and you may be able to outsmart the algorithms.
(Remember, they all have different ways to factor pre-orders into sales rank.)
Don’t have more than one pre-order up at a time. It will annoy readers.
Choose your release date carefully.
The biggest ebook selling days are Saturdays and Sundays. Release your ebook on a weekend, with a pre-order, and you may well see a boost in sales rank. Your book will be more visible to people browsing online on those days. And you may see a boost in sales.
Most large publishers release their books on Tuesdays. By releasing your book on a Tuesday, you’ll be competing with them even more so in the sales rankings.
It’s best to avoid releasing a book on a holiday. People don’t buy on those days. But a week or two after Christmas is often a time when readers buy a lot of books because they have gift card money to spend and time off from work.
Read my longer article, “What Is the Best Month to Publish a Book” with genre-specific recommendations on the best month to self-publish.
You may want to quietly release the paperback book early.
That way you can get start getting reviews that will show up on the official launch date.
You can also request that Amazon link the ebook and paperback. Doing so guarantees that your readers can choose from multiple formats on the official release date (sometimes it takes a few days for Amazon to link your ebook and paperback).
This strategy also gives you time in case anything were to get delayed with your paperback.
Avoid pricing mistakes.
If you’re going to sell your book cheaper during the pre-order period, don’t raise your price until after the release, because you’ll punish your most enthusiastic fans who bought the pre-order.
And don’t drop your price soon after it releases. The people who bought your book on pre-order won’t feel good knowing that if they just waited, they would have saved money.
Click here to read my article “How to Price a Self-Published Book.”
Use your pre-order to sell your other books (if you have other books).
After your pre-order is listed, update the back matter of your other ebooks to include a link to your pre-order.
If your pre-order is doing well, you may be eligible for some retailers’ special promotions and merchandising. To give merchandising managers more flexibility to promote your book, set a release date four or more weeks out.
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How to set up pre-orders on KDP
Everything you need to know about setting up an Amazon KDP pre-order can be found here. In some sections below, I will summarize, while in others I will copy and paste.
Key points
Amazon Kindle ebook pre-order: How it works
You can set a pre-order 3 days to 12 months in advance.
Don’t wait until the last minute; final changes will need to be approved by KDP.
Amazon Kindle ebook pre-order: Eligibility and requirements
Eligibility: Only new KDP eBooks. No public domain books. No paperbacks or hardcovers.
Deadline: 72+ hours before the release date. If you miss the deadline by not uploading your file in time or if you cancel the release of a book that’s on pre-order, you’ll be banned from setting up a pre-order for any ebook for a year.
Manuscript submission, updates to manuscript, and book details: Do it early. Once you’re in that 72 hours before the release date, you can’t make any changes until the book has officially dropped.
List price: You can change your list price during the pre-order period. If you lower it, all customers who pre-ordered your book will pay the lower price. German law requires that if you raise the price during the pre-order period, all pre-order purchases are cancelled. Your buyers will be notified by Amazon and encouraged to buy again.
KDP Select / Kindle Unlimited: Yes, you can enroll in KDP Select. Your 90-day exclusivity period begins on the release date. You can’t schedule Free Book Promotions and Kindle Countdown Deals until after the book release.
Review process: Once you finish setting up your pre-order, Amazon KDP reviews everything. Don’t wait until the last minute to set up your pre-order in case you have to fix something.
Reporting and royalty
Your pre-order report is updated as orders are placed. But you won’t receive credit for final sales until your ebook is released and customers start downloading their copies.
Royalties are calculated based on the royalty plan you choose. You’ll be responsible for delivery costs for ebooks sold to customers in the 70% territories. This link explains how file size and delivery costs can affect royalties.
[The following is taken word for word from KDP Help pages.]
How to List your eBook for pre-order on Amazon KDP
Set up your eBook
To set up your book for pre-order:
Go to your Bookshelf.
Click the “+ Create” button.
Click “Create eBook”.
On the “Kindle eBook Details” page, enter your information.
At the end of the page, under Pre-order section, click Make my Kindle eBook available for pre-order.
Enter your book’s release date.
Click Save and continue. This will take you to the “Kindle eBook Content” page.
Under Manuscript, upload the manuscript file that contains the version of the book you want delivered to customers.
Finish setting up your book, including your cover, and rights and pricing information. When you enter your list price, you get an estimated royalty that’s based on the royalty plan you choose. If you choose the 70% royalty plan without uploading the manuscript file you would like delivered to customers, the estimated royalty will reflect delivery cost for a file size of a typical eBook. Delivery cost can change based on the size of your final file. We recommend using the grid on the Kindle eBook Pricing setup page to understand how file size and delivery costs can affect royalties.
Upload your final manuscript file
When you’re ready to upload your final manuscript file and publish the final version of your eBook:
Go to your Bookshelf.
Under the Kindle eBook Actions menu next to the eBook you want to update, click on the ellipsis button (“...”).
Choose Edit eBook content.
Under Manuscript, upload your final file.
After your eBook converts successfully, click Save and continue. This takes you to the Kindle eBook Pricing page.
Scroll to the button of the page and click Submit for pre-order.
Note: If you don’t click Submit for pre-order, the changes, including the file you upload, won’t be saved. This means that if your file is not saved by the deadline, the pre-order will be canceled and you won’t be able to set up a pre-order for any eBook for one year.
Check status
To see the current status of an eBook you’ve made available for pre-order:
Go to your Bookshelf.
Click Continue setup. You’ll see a timer across the top of the page informing you of the time remaining in which to make changes.
Next to the eBook you want to check, you’ll see your pre-order release date with one of the statuses below.
Learn more about pre-order review timelines.
Status: What it means
Pre-order Draft: Information for your pre-order title has been entered, but the Submit for Pre-order button has not been selected. To publish your book, you need to click on the button mentioned above.
Pre-order In Review: Your eBook has been submitted for pre-order and is currently in review. Review times vary and may take longer if publishing rights need to be verified.
Pre-order Publishing: Your eBook is being published to the Kindle Store. A confirmation email will be sent to you when your eBook goes live on the store.
Pre-order Live: Your pre-order eBook is live in the Kindle Store and available to order.
Pre-order - Cancelled: This pre-order has been cancelled and is unavailable for further editing. The cancellation could be due to your request.
Pre-order Live - Updates in Progress: You entered new information about this pre-order eBook, but it’s not published yet. A previous version of your pre-order eBook is live in the Kindle Store and available for purchase.
Pre-order Live - Updates in Review: KDP is reviewing your recent changes. Review times vary and may take longer if publishing rights need to be verified. Your previous version is still live in the Kindle Store and available for purchase during review.
Pre-order Live - Updates Publishing: Your recent changes are being published to the Kindle Store. A confirmation email will be sent to you when your eBook goes live in the Kindle Store.
Pre-order Live - Ready for Release: Your pre-order eBook is now ready for release on the date you set. You will not be able to update your manuscript file or details within 72 hours of the release as we prepare to deliver the content to customers worldwide. Once the eBook is released, you can publish updates.
Pre-order Blocked: Your title has been made unavailable for further editing either due to your request or due to a problem related to the eBook’s content.
Change a release date
You can move up, delay or cancel the release date for your pre-order:
Go to your Bookshelf.
Under the Kindle eBook Actions menu next to the eBook you want to update, click the ellipsis button (“...”).
Choose Edit eBook details.
In the “Pre-order” section, click Edit release date.
Enter the new date and click OK
Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save and continue.
Click Submit for pre-order.
Move up a release
You can release a book earlier than its originally-scheduled date, assuming you sunmit and republish the final version of your book in time to do so.
Delay a release
You can delay your release date up to 30 days once without penalty. Do it again, and you’ll be banned, for a year, from setting up or extending a pre-order. Customers who ordered the ebook will be notified by Amazon that you delayed the release.
Cancel a release
To cancel your pre-order:
Go to your Bookshelf.
Under the Kindle eBook Actions menu next to the eBook you want to update, click the ellipsis button (“...”).
Choose Unpublish eBook.
A message will display explaining you that if you cancel the pre-order you won’t be able to set up any other book for pre-order during one year.
If you would like to continue, click Unpublish.
If you liked this article, you might also like:
Further reading/listening on Pre-orders
Amazon Kindle ebook pre-order guidelines and how to set up a pre-order
Monica Leonelle, “Should You Set Up an Amazon Pre-Order or Not?”
The Indy Author Podcast The Indy Author Podcast Episode #057 – The Pros and Cons of Pre-Orders with Jo Lallo
Thanks for reading,