Book Pre-Sales: Are they important for your book launch?

Have you heard people saying you have to put your book on presale? Do you know what that means? Even more importantly, do you know? If it's that important for your book launch, stick around. We're going to chat about that today. Hey, I'm Julie, the book broad with book launchers.com, your fabulous professional self publishing team to help you write, publish and sell nonfiction books that will grow your business and make you money. But first, happy birthday to me. Happy birthday. Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me. Well, anyways, yep, it's my birthday today. Don't worry. I filmed this video in advance and even scheduled it in advance because I am not working today. So I won't be responding to your comments but still comment on this video. I'll tell you why at the end of the video. But before we do that, let's get into this important subject. What is a presale? Now let me show you what it looks like on Amazon. This is our client's book, Christian Buck. This is a screenshot of his book the Sport of School when it went on presale. This says the book can be purchased, but it's not available yet. It tells you when it's scheduled to launch right here. So what is presale in technical terms? It's the period of time between when you upload your book or or get retail listing to when it's actually available to be shipped to readers. Now here's when things get a little confusing and can be kind of tricky. A pre sale period is optional and if you're only doing Amazon distribution via kdp, you can upload a book and have it for sale pretty much 48 hours later. So a presale period, that's a tongue twister. Presale period. A pre sale period is not mandatory, but we have to back things up because I stumbled a pre sale period isn't necessary. But if you want distribution anywhere other than Amazon, especially if you're uploading to IngramSpark, you need more time. Even if you aren't doing pre sale period, you need more time. It is your job. That's you, you, you, you. It's your job to make sure Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Chapters, Indigo, Cobo, Apple, whatever, your book is going to be available. It's your responsibility to make sure these companies have it set up right. It's if you work with a company like Book Launchers, we take care of all of that for you. But it still takes time. Each retailer has its own schedule, its own process or process. I'm learning and here's something you need to hear loud and clear. If you want to have a big successful book launch, you need to give yourself time Our client Ryan Berman had his book done in October. He had 150 copies printed and sent to him and he started sending them out to media in influencers and supporters early. His launch date was January 15th and he launched to a Forbes.com Interview Inc. Coverage podcast Interviews Radio. He had pre booked speaking engagements where people were buying 400 copies of his book. I could go on, but I'm only sharing this to point out the fact that Ryan didn't rush it. Results were more important than super speed for him. Bottom line A pre sale period isn't just a time to relax and wait for your book launch. It's a period of time that gives you an opportunity to build a foundation of success for your book's launch. And depending on the goals of your book launch and your book marketing, you should be spending a minimum of two weeks in pre sale and as much as three months. So what are you doing during this pre sale period? Well, here's a few things. Number one, I already touched on this making sure the distribution is set up, pricing is right and and your book is where it should be. Number two, sell copies to your early reviewers at a discount. You can see Chris Bach's book right here. It's listed on Kindle for a presale at $2.99. His Kindle price for launch will be $9.99. At $2.99 he can get his early reviewers his book army. Which by the way, I have a video coming out on that very soon, so make sure you've subscribed to the channel right here so you're going to catch that video. But this allows his book army to buy his book for very cheap cost and when they post reviews, they'll be Amazon verified reviews. Yes. Okay. 3. The longer your book is available for pre order, the more time you have to send readers to Amazon and other stores to buy books. Here's something super important to note if your readers are buying print copies. These pre sale orders all add up and count as sales on your release date when the book ships out. Which gives you a good chance at cracking some Top 100 Bestseller sub genres lists Top 100 Bestseller sub genre Top 100 Bestseller sub genre lists on sites like Barnes and Noble and Apple. If readers buy on Amazon, it counts the day the purchase is made. But here's a fun fact for the E version of your book on Kobo the sale counts twice. Doesn't pay you twice. That would be kind of cool. But it counts twice. It counts for a pre sale and then it counts on launch too. So woohoo for Kobo number four, pre sales help prevent inventory shortages on launch day. This is so important and you don't even know how important it is until you have a killer launch day and Amazon shows this temporarily out of stock message. Your readers can still purchase your book, but sometimes Amazon's going to tell them the title is going to ship in four to six weeks, so you will lose sales if it does that. So pre sales tell Amazon to back that truck up, fill that warehouse so they've got stock titles that are in stock will be listed as available and will ship immediately. And that's what you want. Unless there's a really good reason to get your book out right now, it's a timely subject that's all over the media or your book is on something that's just happening, like a tax loophole or some brand new technology nobody else is writing about, then I would not rush the release of your book. I've got more launch videos for you to check out, but first smash that thumbs up button so YouTube knows you dig this content and it makes me happy. And please subscribe so we can be YouTube besties. Thank you so much for celebrating my birthday with me. It means a lot. And as an extra big thank you, if you comment on my birthday, that's the day this video is released. Not only will you be entered to win the usual awesome book launcher swag, but I'll also draw for an extra winner and they can choose from one of the books I mentioned today, the Sport of School or Return on Courage. Yes, birthdays are best when you share with friends, right? So when you comment below, let me know if you win which of those two books you want. Oh, and what else should you be doing for launch? Well, in this video I talk about what needs to happen in the 90 days post launch. And in this one I talk about what has to happen in the 365 days post launch. Go ahead, click on one of those videos. You'll be happy you did. Keep on watching. I know you wanna.