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Let me kick off this post by saying three things…
1: If you’re reading this right now, Happy New Year! Welcome to my first official blog post of 2021.
2: Yes, you read the title of this blog post correctly.
3: No, I’m not tripping. I’m about to tell you why you should make your book available for preorder on Amazon even BEFORE you finish writing it.
Okay, so first things first, if you’ve never published a book before then you may be wondering what exactly does making your book available for pre-order mean? It means making your book available for readers to purchase in advance of the official release date. When readers purchase your book early, Amazon will automatically send your book to their preferred reading device on the day your book is released.
Not only is making your book available to purchase early a great way to start an early buzz around it but (and this is possibly the best thing ever), you can set your book up for pre-order up to ONE YEAR in advance of the official release date. In my opinion, this is the BEST way to hold yourself accountable to finish your book, whether you have one chapter left until you type ‘The End’ or 20 more chapters. It’s a new year, so if you’re all about making new resolutions and accomplishing things like writing your first book or your fifth, then setting a hard release date can be a great way for you to set a target goal and stick to it.
Another great reason to make your book available for pre-order is once you get people to start purchasing it early, you’re actually eligible to get a leg up on the bestsellers list. Yes, you could potentially become a bestseller before your book is even released (depending on the genre, number of sales you accumulate, and a plethora of other factors). Even though your book won’t technically be available until the release date you set, Amazon still gives you a book details page like this one. That way, you have something to share when you’re promoting it via word of mouth, social media, or email.
The biggest thing you don’t want to do when setting up your book for pre-order is to NOT have the book ready to release on the date you set. Amazon will send you plenty of notifications ahead of your date to ensure that you have the final version of the book uploaded and approved, so that on the release date they can deliver it to your readers with no hiccups. The last thing you want to do is have people purchase your book and then you not uphold your end of the deal.
Pro Tip: If you’re having trouble setting a release date, try choosing a tentative date and work backward from there to make sure you have enough time to get everything done. Basically, calculate how long it will realistically take you to finish your book, get it copyrighted, edited, formatted, etc. if you can do it in the amount of time without feeling rushed, then you have a release date you can stick with.
To learn more about setting your book up for preorder on Amazon KDP, click here.