Amazon’s New Pre-Order Policies Give Authors More Flexibility

Amazon pre-orderAmazon recently made some changes to their pre-order process that give authors more flexibility.

Back in 2014, in what was considered a great leap forward for self-published authors, Amazon provided the ability to offer books for pre-order. Previously, only big publishers had that option on Amazon. While this was a great move, the pre-order process on Amazon had some strict requirements. Book files had to be uploaded ten days prior to the book’s on-sale date, and if you missed the deadline (either because you failed to finish the book or because you simply forgot to check the box saying it was the final copy of your book), Amazon canceled your pre-order and you were banned from doing preorders for an entire year. Continue reading “Amazon’s New Pre-Order Policies Give Authors More Flexibility”

How to Plan a Pre-order Deadline

timerOne of the biggest challenges of the pre-ordering process on Amazon is the dreaded deadline. If you’re not accustomed to hitting deadlines, or if they’ve been a kind of self-imposed suggestion for you (not that I’m judging), it can be especially hard to do it with a book. A lot of moving parts must come together before you can hit the publish button. Also, there are consequences for not meeting this date: you lose your Amazon pre-ordering privileges for a year, and you could end up disappointing a bunch of potential readers. Continue reading “How to Plan a Pre-order Deadline”

Amazon Pre-order Follow-up

DSCN0101When Amazon announced last summer that e-book pre-orders would be accepted for garden-variety indie authors, I pounced. The timing was perfect for my upcoming release, a third book in a series, and I’m usually willing to try something new. You can read about my little adventure in Amazon pre-ordering here. Now that I’ve gone through the process, let’s wrap it up. Continue reading “Amazon Pre-order Follow-up”

What You Need to Know about Amazon Pre-ordering

kindle-itunes-logoWhen Amazon announced that indie authors other than Hugh Howey would be allowed to offer their e-books on pre-order, the timing couldn’t have been better for me to give it a try. I was in the midst of planning my next book release. The description was ready, the categories and keywords chosen, and I’d just sent the final draft of the manuscript out for copyediting. Continue reading “What You Need to Know about Amazon Pre-ordering”