Why authors want you to pre-order books
If you follow any authors on social media, listen to them talk on podcasts, or subscribe to their newsletters (ahem), you have probably seen a familiar call to action: “pre-order now!” Which might seem strange. Books are not limited-edition commodities, like custom sneakers or Zelda-themed consoles. You probably won’t have a hard time finding the latest Stephen King at your local Barnes & Noble.
But pre-orders can have a significant impact on authors, which is why we do things like, say, offer a signed copy and 30% discount to anyone who pre-orders PLAY NICE: The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment from Porchlight Books by September 24.
This is because pre-orders…
…help bookstores know how many copies of a book to buy. Dozens of new books come out every week, and no store on the planet has the space (or budget) to get them all. Pre-ordering helps indie stores, Barnes & Noble, and even Amazon know how many print copies to order, where to shelf them, and how much attention to give each one.
…contribute to week-one sales, which helps a book get on bestseller lists. It’s a funny thing — “bestseller” status is determined by the number of sales in one specific week rather than its lifetime. That means a book that sells 100,000 copies at a clip of 1,000 per week for two years might never be a bestseller, but a book that sells only 5,000 copies in a single week will be. Still, as silly as the math can be, these lists are important, and pre-orders help make it possible to get on them.
…signal to the publisher that people will actually buy the book. This helps them justify spending more money on marketing, sales, store placement, and all the rest of the little things that go into making a book successful.
I am very proud of PLAY NICE and I am very excited for it to (finally!) be in people’s hands. It tells a wild, unbelievable, true story about one of the most fascinating companies in video game history. If that sounds interesting to you, I hope you pre-order it and help make it successful enough that I can keep writing more books in the future.
We’re just about three weeks away — more to come very soon!
I will be seeing you on Oct 8 release day, but my pre-order is supposed to come the same day. I hope it comes in time before your event!
I’m genuinely pretty lazy so usually do most book preorders through Amazon. Would it be better financially for you to do it at a local bookstore or really anywhere else?