A Few Thoughts On: Pre-Ordering Books
Why it's so important, and why you should think about pre-ordering mine!
The first pre-orders for The Edge of Solitude went on sale last week, and the first purchases are in! So I thought this would be a good time to talk in a bit more detail about pre-orders: why they’re so important, and why you should think about pre-ordering books.
(Any books, not just my book. Though of course, if you wanted to pre-order my book, I’d hugely appreciate it! Also, I just saw the cover for the first time, and I can tell you it’s going to look STUNNING on your bookshelf / coffee table / bedside table / Instagram.)
So, what’s the big deal about pre-orders?
1: Pre-orders help authors
There’s this myth that published authors are rolling in money from their book sales – that we all live in rambling country cottages or chic converted warehouse apartments (thanks, Hollywood), and that we’re constantly being wined & dined by our editors & agents. If you’ve been following me for any length of time, you’ll probably already know that isn’t true. At least not for most writers. Many of us make only a fraction of our income from actual book sales, and the rest comes from readings, talks, mentoring, teaching, and a whole host of other types of work.
So anything that boosts book sales is a huge help in upping that potential income.
And pre-orders really do help to boost book sales – because if a book has lots of pre-orders, then publishers are more likely to invest more money in it. This won’t go directly to the author, but it might go into marketing & publicity budgets.
And no, a publisher doesn’t assign all their books the same marketing budget. They spend more on the books they think are going to do well. So if your book gets lots of pre-orders (particularly if it gets more pre-orders than expected), then the logical conclusion is that the book might become a bigger seller than anticipated, so may be given a bigger marketing budget.
This means a publicist might have more opportunity to promote the book. It might get pitched to more festivals, events, radio programmes. The social media team might get to invest more time in making images / gifs / video trailers for the book, and posting them from the publisher’s social media accounts. (And if you’ve never taken a look at the social media accounts of some of the larger UK publishers, their follower numbers tend to be huge.)
The attention a book receives then has the potential to spiral. Partly because a book’s pre-orders are all counted as part of its publication week sales – so if it has a lot of pre-orders, it can really push it up the sales charts in its opening week. Which makes publishers, bookshops, reviewers, events programmers, and of course book buyers pay attention!
Having a large number of pre-orders also makes bookshops more likely to order more copies when the book does come out. After all, they’ve already sold quite a few before publication, so that trend is likely to continue after publication, too. And if a bookshop has a stack of a particular stock, then that book is more likely to end up positioned on a table, or at least face-out if it’s on a shelf – both of which help to sell books far more efficiently than the book being on a shelf with only the spine showing.
Plus, having a decent number of pre-orders makes a writer feel good!
Of course, we rarely know exactly how many pre-orders our books have, but sometimes, a writer will have a good relationship with their local bookshop, so we might at least have an idea of how many pre-orders that particular shop has received.
Which brings me onto…
2: Pre-orders help bookshops
I make no secret of the fact that I’m a big supporter of independent bookshops. Yes, it’s super convenient to buy books from that big website which I don’t need to advertise by naming it – and if you want to buy my book from there, then go for it! – but it’s much better for local economies to support a local indie bookshop. It’s also just a nicer experience, where you get to interact with actual humans, and know that the money is likely to be going to people working hard & passionate about books, rather than into some fat cat’s pocket.
Not to mention that local bookshops can be great at helping to promote the writers that they in turn have a good relationship with – creating a beautiful ecosystem where everyone benefits.
So it’s great to buy books from local bookshops. But it’s even better to pre-order them!
Pre-orders mean the bookshop gets the money up front, in advance of having to pay for the book themselves, which reduces the economic risk for the bookshop.
Not only that, but pre-ordering will help a book gage how many copies they need to order for when the book does come out. They can place their orders well in advance, and are less likely to run out of stock when the book is published.
And if you get enough pre-orders, and enough bookshops end up ordering enough stock in advance, you may even get a second printing ahead of publication! Which in turn can lead to the publisher investing more in marketing / publicising the book, and so the cycle continues.
3: Pre-orders are a gift to future you!
Or to future someone else, if you’re feeling generous.
I don’t know if you’ve seen all the ‘girl math’ / ‘boy math’ / ‘cat math’ videos doing the rounds on TikTok and Instagram? Where someone makes incredible twists of logic to justify spending money on something they really want?
Well, here’s some ‘book math’:
Let’s say you pre-order a book today. For argument’s sake, let’s say that book is The Edge of Solitude, which doesn’t come out till July. This means you’ve bought and paid for it 8 months before publication. Which means that, by the time the book comes out, the money left your account so long ago that you no longer notice it being gone. In other words, by the time the book arrives, it’s basically free.
See? Book math.
Ok, so I know that isn’t actually how money works, but I think there is a kind of truth to it all the same. A pre-order is a gift for your future self. Past you will already have paid for it, so future you doesn’t have to.
And if you’re like me and sometimes forget that you’ve pre-ordered a book, then when it lands on your doormat or in your post box several months down the line, it’ll be a wonderful surprise!
And speaking of gifts, sometimes, pre-orders come with exclusive extras!
For example, last week, pre-orders for The Edge of Solitude went on sale with my lovely local indie bookshop, Sam Read. Not only will I be signing all of these pre-orders when the books come in stock next year, but with the first 50, we’ll be giving away a free Antarctic-themed postcard, created exclusively for the book!
So there you have it. With so many great reasons to pre-order a book, why not treat yourself? Or someone else. Or both!
And if pre-ordering / buying a book isn’t an option, you can always request that your local library pre-orders a copy. Or several copies. Maybe even a book club set…?
Happy pre-ordering - and I can’t wait to share the cover with you!
I’ve preordered from Sam Read - given a choice I would always prefer to support local, small and independent. I feel if I went ‘bigger’ ie. Waterstones et al the special fuzzy feeling of a pre order might get diluted as, like The Unhurried Reader touched on, they’ll ‘be getting it in anyway’.
I've had mixed success with pre-ordering books. Most recently, I emailed my local independent and asked to pre-order a copy of a book, only to be told 'oh, we'll be getting that in anyway.' Is there a way to ensure that our pre-order actually registers as such?