One great tool that you may not have thought about is putting your book up for preorder. In this guest post, bestselling author Wesley Thomas outlines why this marketing practice works so well for your books.
So, you’re considering putting your book up for preorder, but why? What are the benefits? What is the point? Is it a waste of time?
The answer is NO!
Here, I am going to list 10 reasons why you should take full advantage of the preorder facility.
1) Let’s start with the fact that it allows convenience. Once preordered, it is delivered straight to the reader.
2) It allows super-readers to support you, by preordering. We all want those dedicated, incredible super-readers who buy every one of our releases. If you don’t have them just yet, get working on it! Once you have them, it is important to give them the opportunity to feel like a dedicated reader of all your works. i.e preordering!
3) By using the facility, you appear more successful and professional. Therefore, are more appealing to readers. If you put your books up for preorder, you must be a successful author? I must check out their books! The first time I put my book up for preorder I was making monthly royalties, and making a living from my book sales, but since using the preordering tool for the last three of my books, my sales, reviews, followers and general author presence has grown remarkably.
4) It gives you a chance to make an extra benefit from promoting pre-release. Most authors will promote their book before its release anyway, to raise awareness. So why not allow the interested readers to preorder? You may as well!
5) People who preorder will judge your book solely on the cover and blurb. You don’t have to worry about any negative reviews negatively impacting purchases.
6) Possibly the most important reason: you could become a bestseller! If you are smart with keywords and selecting the right categories, plus all the preorders going through on day one as sales when it is officially released, it could shoot you up to the top. That being said, you need a lot of preorders to do this. Yet another reason to promote that preorder!
7) Build anticipation and hype. Sometimes, as a reader myself, I know that when a book is readily available and you just spontaneously buy it, you don’t appreciate it as much as if you had to wait. When I really want to read a book and have to wait for its release you are more likely to enjoy it, therefore, leave a positive review. If you have it preordered (as a reader) you’ll be so excited. Then on the day it goes onto their Kindle, they’ll be so happy that the day is finally here!
8) It helps you find dedicated readers. These days, it takes a lot for someone to preorder something. Most will just wait for the release, but patience is a fast expiring concept. So if you promote it and manage to bag yourself one of those total bookworms who live for reading by having your book available for preorder, you may get yourself a fan.
9) Take full advantage of your mailing list. If you have a newsletter (which you should!) you should be emailing and making it clear that your book is available for preorder. You didn’t spend all that time and effort building a mailing list to let those readers sit there with nothing to read did you? So email it out to them.
Final Tip
Keep the price low. From all the millions of books on Amazon, you need to give people a reason to preorder your book. Another benefit of low pricing is if the book is the first in a series, you are getting them hooked from the get-go, and they bought the first book cheap, but make the next books in the series a little higher. Don’t insult the readers by going from $1 to $20 for the rest of the series. But something like $1 to $5 / $7 (the standard novel price) is fine. Maybe a slow increase if the series has six or seven books. Each time a little more expensive, which is less likely to put them off than with a huge jump straight away.
Wesley Thomas is a bestselling horror author, owner of Wesley’s Author Promo Service, head of marketing for a UK firm, and works as a freelance writer for several websites. He loves reading, painting, fitness, movies, traveling, good food, and spending time with his family & friends. Authors, sign up for his monthly writing and marketing tips here.