Julie Broad (founder of Book Launchers) explains why presales matter and how to generate them for nonfiction authors. She contrasts goals for traditionally published vs self-published authors, recommends a short presale period (about 6–8 weeks) focused on building reviewer teams and email lists rather than maximizing early sales, and lists concrete tactics: create valuable presale incentives, email your list, post on social media, enlist influencers/endorsers, use website/newsletter banners, and set up print presales via IngramSpark. Platforms like Kobo/Apple can count presales twice; Amazon does not.
Questions this video answers
Six to eight weeks.
IngramSpark.
Chapters
Presales are when your book is for sale, but the buyer doesn't get a copy of the book yet. They are really important for traditional publishers because presales give them an idea of how many books to print on their print run. For self publishing authors, there are reasons to do a pre sale period, but you can do a six to eight week pre sale period and be in great shape. But you might be wondering how do you get pre sales and why? Does it really matter? Well, if that is what you're wondering, this video is absolutely for you. Hey there. I'm Julie the book broad. I'm the founder of Book Launchers, your full service self publishing services company helping you write, publish and promote a nonfiction book to grow your brand and your business. Now before I get into the how of pre sales, let us talk about the why and whether it even matters. It's important to understand that a long pre sale period can work against you. The conversion rate of selling your book months before the book launch is going to be lower than when somebody can instantly get the book. Now that does not mean you don't want a bit of time in presale, but it does mean I wouldn't invest months and months in presale unless your number one goal is to make a periodical bestseller list, which for self publishing authors right now is basically the USA Today list. Pre launch should be focused on building your advanced reviewer team and getting email addresses to have the best shot at a great Amazon ranking. You should focus on getting people to buy your book or on the day or the week it launches. Pre sales don't really help with that. Now platforms like Kobo or Apple pre sales get to count twice. Once in pre sale and once in launch. So that's kind of fun. But Amazon doesn't play that way. And if you're a traditionally published author, well, presales do matter. You want to sell a lot as fast as you can because they're going to put more resources behind your book. And it impresses bookstore buyers who are deciding which books make it onto their shelves. Again, self publishing authors, the focus for a pre sale period should be getting excitement around your book so your reviewers are ready to post reviews, making sure your listings are ready to rock for launch. I call this fighting the bots. And you're starting to get some momentum behind your book. For our clients at Book Launchers, book sales feel great, but the number one goal is usually to use the book to build their brand and their business and just get exposure, credibility and and brand building and that's as important or even more important than selling copies in pre sale personally. At all points in your author journey, your focus is on growing your platform, building your newsletter list. But pre sale momentum focuses on building your audience and letting them know your book is coming out and then when it's out, letting them know it's there and to go buy it and to write their reviews. Usually, though, let's be real, it takes years to build a list substantial enough to make a big presale campaign happen. But pre sale is still a great time to start that outreach and start that audience building. Now just think about where your potential readers may come from and make a list. Your professional contacts Personal contacts. Your audience if you have video, written or audio content out there, social media content contacts as well Presale is also a great time to create and promote a presale or ideally a launch week incentive. And the goal of that is to drive buying of your book. And there's many ways you can do this. You can give away bonus content, a video course, free audio version of your book, invites to an exclusive Q and A. You could create a cool swag pack. Whatever it is, it should be something with a value that's higher than the cost of the book. So something so valuable they would have paid for it, but you're giving it to them free for buying the book. When you offer pre order incentives, it not only encourages people to pre order, it also gets people talking about. I especially recommend creating incentives that build social sharing so you can start to create that feeling of being everywhere to your ideal reader. Now keep in mind, it is harder than ever to get someone to buy your book in advance because we live in a world of instant gratification. It's much easier to get someone to give you their email address and that is where I'd focus most of my pre launch efforts and then shift to book sales in launch week. And with that email list you can build the relationship, sell your book and then sell whatever else you have to offer. Whether it's coaching, courses, services speaking. Okay, but let's say you want pre sales and that's where you're focused right now. Great. Here are five things to do to get pre sales now if you want print pre sales you have to be set up in ingramspark. Someday I'm sure KDP will add the ability to sell pre sales in print, but to date they don't. So set yourself up on IngramSpark or work with us and we'll do it for you. Check out our services@book launchers.com KDP can be set up to pre sell your ebook or you can set up on Draft two Digital or Kobo or Apple and drive pre sales in ebooks over there. Those platforms in Particular Kobo and Draft 2 Digital are so author friendly and want to help you sell books in presale and beyond. Okay, once you're set up to actually sell books, now you have to get pre sales. Number one Create a reason to buy that book in advance. Like I said course audiobook version Q and a tool workbook. You can do what you want but make sure it's valuable. 2. Email your list about it. 3. Post on any social media you have about this. 4. If you have influencers or endorsers who agreed to promote it as well, get them to do the same. 5. Post a banner on your website, newsletter, social media and if you have time and energy, do one by one outreach to your contacts. Remember that list we talked about earlier? Let them know your book is available for sale and you would appreciate any and all support. Once your book is launched, switch to running a launch promotion that could be an ebook sale. A 99 cent ebook sale. If you want to get an Amazon Bestseller list, run that a full day after launch because sometimes the price doesn't drop immediately and push your book from launch day forward. What do you do to get pre sales and what do you do to focus on post launch? Let's chat about it in the comments below after you've subscribed and turned on the notifications. Oh and you can also click like if you want to and commenting the day a video is released gets you entered to win some of our hashtag noboringbookswag and or books and it gets you one step closer to joining our YouTube besties family. Okay, now it's time to check out this video on Draft 2 Digital. You'll enjoy this platform if you don't know it already or if you're good there. How about this one on creating great reader magnets? Both are great viewing. Click on Over. I'm waiting.
