9 Tips to Get More Preorders for Your Next Book

By Shawn & R.J.

There are a lot of great reasons for you to boost your book’s preorders:

• Preorders allow your biggest fans to express their enthusiasm for your work
• Having a book available for preorder gives the impression that you’re a successful, “must-read” author
• Preorders give you yet another useful marketing angle to promote your work (while extending the promotional timeframe)
• Making your book available for preorder gives you an opportunity to identify your most ardent fans
• Preorders help you build hype and anticipation, making it more likely that your book will be a bestseller

But you can’t just make your book available for preorder and expect people to buy it en masse; you have to do some work to ensure that your preorder campaign is a success.   Thankfully, we’ve got some great tips to help you maximize the preorders for your next book!

How to Drive Book Sales Through Preorders: 9 Tips

#1 — Tell Everyone You Know   One of the best pieces of preorder advice we’ve encountered was given by author and entrepreneur Julian Hosp back in Episode 66 of The Author Hangout. Julian is a master of getting preorders, and one of his recommended methods is simple but incredibly effective: contact everyone you know personally, whether they’re in your phone’s contacts, your email, on your Facebook friends list or elsewhere.   Making this personal connection means a lot to people, and it can help you spread awesome word-of-mouth promotion for your book. This takes time and effort, but it’s something that can pay off in a big way!

#2 — Take Advantage of Your Email List   Your email list is the cornerstone of your author platform, and getting preorders is a wonderful way to make use of it. The people on your list are more likely to preorder your book, so be sure to let them know about it!

#3 — Set the Price Low   It’s much easier to get people to preorder when you provide incentives for them to do so. Set your preorder price low and you’ll give people a great reason to get on board!

#4 — Build Your Social Media Following Early   Promoting your book on social media is essential, but if you want to ensure that you maximize your preorder sales, you need to build a strong following. Don’t wait until you make your book available to start getting followers and fans!

#5 — Reach Out to Online Influencers   Identify podcasters, bloggers YouTubers and social media mavens who can help you build excitement about preordering your book. Provide them with something of value in exchange for preorder promotion.

#6 — Use Goodreads   Obviously, you’re going to be promoting your upcoming release on your website (you’re doing that, right?), but be sure to use the Goodreads platform, as well, so you can reach the world’s biggest book fans where they hang out.

#7 — Run Promotions on Existing Books   If you have a back catalog of titles, now is a great time to promote them aggressively, which will enhance your author profile and get more people interested in your existing output. By doing this, you stand a much better chance of getting them to preorder your next one.

#8 — Update Existing Books’ Back Matter   Another great way to leverage your existing selection of books is to update their back matter to include the preorder link for your next book.

#9 — Build Your Marketing Plan as Early as Possible!   Don’t make your book available for preorder and then create your marketing plan; instead, create a solid marketing plan (which will involve you doing something significant to promote your book every week, at minimum) and then make your book available for preorder. Have a great week, authors!

Culled from: Book Marketing Tools