Do I pre-order or wait until a book is published?

Breaking down the purpose and impact of pre-ordering for authors

Sep 26, 2024

My very conscientious and decidedly woke mother-in-law (who reads this newsletter — hi, Laura 👋🏼❤️) asked me recently if I recommended pre-ordering a book or picking up a copy once it’s published. She was thinking about the time I pre-ordered a book and didn’t receive it until days after the publication date. Part of me wished I’d not pre-ordered and instead ran to the bookstore the day it came out, so eager was I to dig in. But the part of me who resists Amazon even though books are often $5-$10 cheaper there, the part of me who supports authors in the small way I can — that part of me knew that pre-ordering was the way to go.

Why pre-orders matter for authors

Pre-orders signal to publishers that a book is worth investing in, which can translate to a higher print-run, which can translate into more booksellers deciding to carry the book, which can translate to more sales.

Publicist

Kathleen Schmidt

says Amazon “will order copies based on preorder numbers, so if those figures are low, their order will follow suit.” But if the figures are high, Amazon will order a higher volume. She continues: “If a book suddenly pops into the top 100 on Amazon, there’s a good chance Barnes & Noble will place an order for copies if they haven’t already done so.” (Kathleen’s full article, Why Pre-Order “Campaigns” Rarely Work, can be read here. The “rarely work” part refers to publishers unfairly putting so much emphasis on authors running their own pre-order campaigns.)

There are a lot of “may lead to” and “can translate to” notes above, but one thing is certain: the pre-order effect can have ripples, and it starts with consumers.

The bestseller lists

In order to become a New York Times bestseller (which by the way is a notoriously nebulous feat, the calculation of which nobody quite knows or understands), you need to sell thousands of books in a single week to compete with the Colleen Hoovers and the Sarah J. Maases. The number varies depending on how many copies of the hottest books are being sold weekly, but I assure you the number is big. Huge. Thousands of books sold per week is what it requires for an author to become a New York Times bestseller.

BUT! All pre-orders count toward the book’s first week of sales. This means that all the pre-orders an author collects in the months leading up to publication will be tallied in their first week of publication. So the higher the number of pre-orders, the better the chances the author has at selling the incredibly high and basically untenable number of books it requires to make the list. For debut authors, this may be their only shot, unless their book pops off, as the young kids say, on TikTok. But we can’t plan for that.

Breanne Randall, author of The Unfortunate Side Effects of Heartbreak and Magic, faced 500+ rejections before her book was finally published in 2023. But eventually she got an agent, then she sold her book to Alcove Press, then she did a ton of social media work and rallied her fans to pre-order her book. And guess what? She was an instant New York Times bestseller. And even if she was only on the list for one week (I don’t actually know how long she was on the list, but it wasn’t long), she will forever be able to say she’s a NYT bestseller. The label lasts for life, and she earned it by securing thousands of pre-orders. Now, given her great sales record, she has a second book — the first in a series — coming out this year.

Pushing pre-orders in hopes to become a bestseller is not a good strategy, but if it worked for Breanne Randall, it can work for other debut authors.

The Barnes & Noble Pre-order

Barnes & Noble is known to do a 25% off pre-order deal. Author

Andrea DeWerd

explained this well on Instagram prior to the publication of her book, What We Sacrifice For Magic, (which was published this Tuesday. Happy publication, Andrea!) She said Barnes & Noble was doing a 25% off pre-order deal for her book and shared a link. But in addition to the link, she explained why B&N does these sales frequently. (Remember the book I’d pre-ordered that arrived a few days after pub? That was a B&N pre-order that I snagged for 25% off.)

In the Insta story, Andrea explained:

Consumer book pre-ordering has fallen off in general, which used to tell B&N what books were popping so they could order up for their 700+ physical stores and know where to get which inventory. As pre-orders have fallen off over the last 2ish years, retailers are scrambling for any kind of data to help them predict trends and manage inventory.
For authors, this tells B&N which books to take a bigger stance on, i.e. a B&N pre-order may help get your fave authors’ books into physical stores down the road, at a time when B&N is being more selective about what they’re putting in physical retail.

Depending on where you pre-order your book from, you may not be charged until publication. So unless you’re one who needs to hold a book in your hands before purchasing, it makes virtually zero difference to the buyer if it’s ordered today or in four months. But for the author, the difference can be life-changing.

If you plan to purchase an author’s forthcoming book, please consider pre-ordering it! It might show up a few days after its publication date — but who cares. You’re doing a good thing by supporting the author.

If this has been helpful, please share with fellow readers who might be inclined to pre-order books if they knew how much it helps the authors. Thanks for reading!

What are you reading?

What I’m reading: The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Love,

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