Today we’re going to talk about the murky muddy world of setting up a preorder for your book when you are selfpublishing. Stay tuned.

What is a preorder?
A preorder is when a book is set to be published on September 1, but readers can buy it ahead of time. They order the book in June when they hear about it or in July when the cover is revealed. They buy it now and the book is sent to them on September 1. This can be for the digital version, the print version, audio. The idea is that the publisher is capturing reader interest now when there is a lot of hype around the book instead of hoping they’ll remember to buy it later.

Terminology
Preorder is this specific functionality of purchasing the book now ahead of its official release.
Some authors call this a presale as well. Those terms can be used interchangeably.

What you can do on Amazon KDP
On Amazon KDP you can set up a preorder for your eBook. The release date is Septemeber 1, preorder can start tomorrow.
For the paperback and hardcover, you can preschedule your book.
That’s a new term. That one can’t be used interchangeably with preorder. This preschedule functionality allows you to set the release date ahead of time, but not the purchase functionality. Previously you would upload your print book to Amazon KDP and sometime in the next 72 hours it would go live. This is annoying if you are trying to coordinate a launch around one specific day to announce it is live.

What you can do on IngramSpark
Here is where IngramSpark comes in. You CAN set a print preorder (and eBook preorder) on this system. You set both the street date and publication date for, in this continued example, September 1. Why you can’t say preorder? Check yes, publication date: Sept 1. I don’t know.

The twoplatform preorder system
So the paperback or hardcover is on preorder and pushed to the retail network… including Amazon. Then on launch day, you upload your book to KDP and that listing supercedes the ingramspark one. To do this you have to own your ISBN!

This is complex. This is added levels of detail. This is added weeks of planning before you announce your preorder because it takes time to approve your digital proof and then for Ingram to push it to its network
Is it worth doing a preorder?
So after hearing this madness, you may decide a preorder isn't for you and your book. Or maybe you only do an ebook preorder but the print is out so you can get reviews. It’s murky. There really isn’t one right answer. I do preorders for my books, but you may not want to fiddle with all this.


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