Kindle Pre-Order Ebook Publishing – The Benefits

Kindle pre-orders for ebooks is a very useful tool.

Even if only to stop you rushing into releasing your ebook.

Publishing your new book is always a stressful time with so many elements to consider.

Will it work? Is it a good book? Will readers like it? Will the damn thing sell? Did I get all the typos?

With so many unknowns, it is impossible to know. However, one thing is certain. If you rush your book to publication without careful planning, a disaster so often awaits.

This is one reason why I always use pre-order publishing now, which is available on Amazon KDP, Draft2Digital and Smashwords because it gives me time to think, adjust, change, modify, re-think and make damn sure my new book is ready – to be bought, and read.

Unfortunately, though, Createspace, which is increasingly becoming an Amazon dinosaur, with its head in the sand attitude toward so many services that are author-friendly, does not offer pre-order publishing.

So simple, but as with all simple things, Createspace fails badly at every turn.

Update: You can now self-publish paperbacks with Amazon KDP. This is a much better way.

Kindle Pre-orders give you time to make last minute changes

But back to Kindle pre-orders.

There are many reasons to do this. One is to allow time to build momentum for your new ebook by way of good book promotion such as blog posts, social media posts and telling the whole world that you have a new, exciting ebook coming.

Secondly, it gives you time to make sure every little thing is right.

Whether it be time to do one more proofread, one more look at your cover, or one more thought about chapter one and if it should be moved to chapter three.

I only mention this chapter move idea, because this is what I did to a new book a little while ago.

My book was scheduled to publish in a little over three weeks, but with the time I had after setting up my pre-order, I made this change, plus a few other small changes that I was so happy to have done before my book was available for readers.

For some reason, pre-order publishing focuses the mind, and even though errors can always be corrected after publishing, having the reassurance that pre-order publishing allows for mistakes to be corrected without anyone seeing them is a blessing.

The only drawback, though, and this applies to Amazon Kindle, in particular, is that when your book is on pre-order, there is no ‘Look Inside’ preview on your Amazon book page.

What a pain, because how can potential book buyers judge whether to pre-order a book or not when they have nothing to read to make their decision?

But this is where Createspace, for all their failings, comes in very useful. By publishing a paperback version of your book, you will, after a week or so, have a ‘Look Inside’ preview read for your paperback version.

I usually publish my paperback version on Createspace two weeks before publishing my pre-order ebook.

A few days after the ebook is published on Kindle pre-order, both versions are combined on the Amazon book page, and at least readers can now make an informed decision by being able to access the paperback’s ‘Look Inside’ preview read.

Yes, I know, it’s a very long workaround process for something that should be so simple.

If Createspace offered pre-ordering publishing, and KDP offered ‘Look Inside’ for pre-orders, it would all be so much easier, wouldn’t it?

But, who said life was meant to be easy?

In the end, though, launching your new ebook with pre-orders has more positives than negatives.

It gives you time to slow down, to get things right, do a lot of pre-release book promotion, think, fix, perfect, and best of all, get ebook sales before day one to give your book launch day a huge lift.