A famous author just told me I’d fail
And she's probably right.
Why are pre‑orders so important for indie authors?
Two weeks ago, I joined a Zoom call with a famous author I really like and asked for advice on my pre‑order campaign. Her honest answer: Don’t bother, you’re not going to make it. I don’t think she meant to be unkind; she probably meant my time is better spent elsewhere. But since I’d already kicked off my pre‑order campaign, that wasn’t super helpful.
In this post I’ll explain why pre‑orders matter, especially for indie authors. We’ll look at short vs. long campaigns (there’s an embarrassing confession from me in that section), and tips for pre-order campaigns.
If you’re a writer, this should help you plan your next launch.
If you’re a reader, you’ll finally understand why authors keep begging for pre‑orders, and how much they matter. if you love supporting indies, pre‑ordering is cheap but hugely meaningful. That, and reviews, reviews, reviews. But, if you think you might need to cancel a pre‑order, please don’t place it in the first place. The algorithm penalizes authors when pre‑orders get canceled.
And hey, it would be weird to write a whole post on pre‑orders without asking you to pre‑order my book for only 2.99$, right?
She was wed to unite kingdoms. He lives to raze them.
This dark fantasy romance is set in Amada, where a rigid “True Religion” ranks people by the color of their hair and eyes and demonizes a horned race called the Cursed Ones. At its core, the novel pits a traumatized princess and a vengeful warrior against an empire’s lies, slavery, and religious extremism, forcing both to decide whether they will perpetuate the cycle of vengeance or break it together.
Why Kindle Pre‑Orders Are a Big Deal for Indie Authors
Roughly 225,000 new Kindle eBooks hit Amazon’s KDP platform every month—about 7,500 a day. Pre‑orders are one of the few ways to level that crowded playing field and set your book up for success from day one. https://mashable.com/article/amazon-first-reads
How Kindle Pre‑Orders Boost Rankings and Visibility
Pre-orders count toward Amazon’s sales ranking: Every pre-order is logged as a sale, which means your book can start climbing the Kindle rankings before it’s even out in the world. If you secure hundreds of pre-orders, you’re essentially stacking up a wave of sales that can push your book higher on release – increasing your odds of hitting an Amazon Best Seller or Hot New Releases chart.
Discovery perks. A good rank means your book is more likely to appear in search results, category lists, and even the “customers also bought” carousel.
More visibility + higher rank = more readers finding you.
Timing Is Everything—Mine Sucks
Remember the promise for an embarrassing confession? I was aiming for a one‑month pre‑order at the end of August, and the reasons I was planning that are:
1. this is my debut and I don’t have tons of followers—I figured I could only push for so long.
2. I’m knee‑deep in a massive house reno and have to move out tomorrow.
3. I’m leaving the States for six weeks for the summer.
But, and this is the embarrassing part, after I did all the settings for my print book, I went and did the settings for my eBook and didn't realize that unlike in the print settings, scheduling the publication date for the end of August meant that my pre‑order stage went live. It's a very stupid and very embarrassing mistake. When I received an Amazon email that I'm live and realized I can't change that, I cried for an hour and had a complete meltdown.
But since I had no better option, I decided I'm gonna try and make these lemons into limoncello (I'm flying to Italy tomorrow, so not everything in my life looks dark right now). I'm gonna try and make the best of it. There are benefits to a long pre‑order. I'm gonna explain now the pros and the cons, it's probably not for my profile, but if I manage to pull it off, the prize will be great.
On Amazon, each pre-order is counted at the time the customer clicks the button, not all at once later. So a long pre-order period can spread your sales out – great for steady buzz, but it won’t create one massive spike. The trick for Kindle is to time your pre-order window strategically. Many indie authors keep the pre-order period shorter (a few weeks to a month) so those sales are more concentrated, helping them shoot up the charts when it counts.
A note of caution: Pre-orders won’t magically hit the top 100 by themselves. If a book goes up for pre-order and few people notice, its sales rank will start low. When launch day comes, a book that’s been sitting with no activity can struggle to gain traction. Amazon’s algorithm favors books that sell right out of the gate. So, if you’re a brand-new author without a fan base, you might skip or shorten the pre-order window to avoid a “silent” launch. On the flip side, if you do drum up interest and orders in advance, you’ll hit release day with momentum instead of an uphill climb.
A success story:
Kathryn Le Veque – an indie author, used a three-month pre-order strategy to launch her book Warwolfe. She priced it at $0.99 during the pre-order period to entice as many readers as possible, and promoted it heavily to her fanbase and beyond. The strategy paid off big time: thanks to those pre-orders, Warwolfe hit #110 on the USA Today bestseller list in its release week.
Kathryn noted that three months gave her enough runway to build up sales numbers without letting interest peter out. By release day, she had thousands of copies sold (at that attractive price), which not only boosted her rankings but also put her book on a national bestseller list – a huge win for an indie-published romance novel. After launch, she raised the price to her normal $2.99, but that early surge had done its job in vaulting the book into the spotlight.
I’ll be in the chat if you have any other questions about pre‑orders.
Tips and Strategies to Maximize Kindle Pre‑Orders
Never announce a date you can’t hit. You can only change a publication date once. If you cancel a publication Amazon bans you from pre‑orders for a year. Build in buffer time.
Treat it like a mini‑launch. Once your Amazon page is live—cover, blurb, the works—blast it everywhere. Tell readers why pre‑ordering matters. Make sure it’s on Goodreads, etc.
Offer incentives. Exclusive bonus chapter, short story, giveaway entry, whatever makes readers feel like VIPs. Discounting the pre‑order to $0.99 can turbocharge downloads (and visibility).
Good luck, and please consider pre‑ordering my book 😊
This is a very helpful post for all indie authors looking to publish on platforms like Kindle! Thank you for sharing. I'll be saving this for future me!
This is super valuable and thought provoking for me as an indie author. Thank you so much.