Author Topic: Placeholder & late date for preorders?  (Read 1279 times)

alhawke

Placeholder & late date for preorders?
« on: November 06, 2020, 04:12:19 AM »
For those who do preorders, I'm planning a 1 month preorder for a third book in my series. I've never set a preorder this far in advance. Should I add a page placeholder or the entire manuscript? Some writers have posted in the past that they've had problems with Amazon and Kobo updating to a revised manuscript and readers end up receiving a rough draft unedited book.

Another question. I'm trying to release mid-December. Do you ever release preorders a week early from your targeted date? I plan a mid December release but I've thought of entering December 20 instead of December 15 in case my editors are running late. Then if everything's done, I'll just release early on the 15th.
 

Eric Thomson

Re: Placeholder & late date for preorders?
« Reply #1 on: November 06, 2020, 04:19:11 AM »
I never, ever upload anything other than the cover. The only interior file that goes up is the final one.

I also give myself a good fudge factor when setting the release date, with the understanding that I'll move it up if everything is good to go at an earlier date.
 
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Simon Haynes

Re: Placeholder & late date for preorders?
« Reply #2 on: November 06, 2020, 04:19:57 AM »
Nowadays you can do a preorder without any sort of manuscript upload. You only need the cover.

Yes, I've brought forward preorders before. The only thing that would make me hesitate is if people were budgeting for the charge on one date, and it went through on their card much earlier. But we're talking about five bucks, so I don't really thing that's going to be an issue.
 
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LilyBLily

Re: Placeholder & late date for preorders?
« Reply #3 on: November 06, 2020, 05:21:34 AM »
I don't think you even need the cover. I set up a pre-order for my latest before I had a cover. I never put anything on an Amazon pre-order that isn't final copy. Too many horror stories.
 
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alhawke

Re: Placeholder & late date for preorders?
« Reply #4 on: November 06, 2020, 05:28:19 AM »
Very helpful, thanks to all of you. I didn't know you could just upload the cover. This is great news!

For those who are wide, what about Kobo? Or other retailers like Apple? Problems with those? I've read some horror stories with Kobo. One option would be to just put it up on Amazon with the cover and then wait till everything is finalized with my book before adding to the other retailers.
 

alhawke

Re: Placeholder & late date for preorders?
« Reply #5 on: November 06, 2020, 05:44:33 AM »
The only thing that would make me hesitate is if people were budgeting for the charge on one date, and it went through on their card much earlier.
I didn't even think about that. Thanks. I've got a tight schedule so I might need to risk it, but the date would only be at most a week earlier.
 

Simon Haynes

Re: Placeholder & late date for preorders?
« Reply #6 on: November 06, 2020, 05:58:31 AM »
I wouldn't worry about that one too much. I would imagine that if people are budgeting for a $5 spend on an ebook, they're probably not ordering ebooks ahead of time.
 

notthatamanda

Re: Placeholder & late date for preorders?
« Reply #7 on: November 06, 2020, 06:06:16 AM »
Kobo makes you put up a file for the preorder and on my last preorder I screwed up and released it instead of preorder (I don't know how) and it actually was sitting up there for months with a half finished book. This time around I just decided to do the early preorder on Amazon. I set the date way out and when the book is ready I will bring it in for a month away and go hard on the ads. At that point I'll start putting it on the other sites for preorder but I am going to have to be very careful about Kobo.
 
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notthatamanda

Re: Placeholder & late date for preorders?
« Reply #8 on: November 06, 2020, 06:10:49 AM »
I don't think you even need the cover. I set up a pre-order for my latest before I had a cover. I never put anything on an Amazon pre-order that isn't final copy. Too many horror stories.

You don't have to put in a book file to do a preorder anymore, you can just do the cover and skip that, which is what I did. It is nice, one less thing to worry about.
 

alhawke

Re: Placeholder & late date for preorders?
« Reply #9 on: November 06, 2020, 03:11:17 PM »
Kobo makes you put up a file for the preorder and on my last preorder I screwed up and released it instead of preorder (I don't know how) and it actually was sitting up there for months with a half finished book.
Thanks! Unlike Amazon with just a cover file, I'll send out my preorder for Kobo after my draft is near complete.
 

VanessaC

Re: Placeholder & late date for preorders?
« Reply #10 on: November 06, 2020, 06:56:40 PM »
I use pre orders all the time - I'm only on Amazon.

Slightly off topic, but in case you hadn't spotted it, Amazon has a "lock in" period for a few days before release - so you have to upload your final file X days before the release date (Amazon tells you the deadline for final upload).

You absolutely can bring the date forward if you need to, but the lock in period also applies.

I usually have a long pre-order for the next book in a series, but state a target release date on the book's product page - so I bring my pre orders forward all the time, too, and have never had any push back from readers. (Mind you, I'm a small fish in the big pond.)

Best of luck.
     



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TimothyEllis

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Re: Placeholder & late date for preorders?
« Reply #11 on: November 06, 2020, 08:32:42 PM »
I usually have a long pre-order for the next book in a series, but state a target release date on the book's product page - so I bring my pre orders forward all the time, too, and have never had any push back from readers. (Mind you, I'm a small fish in the big pond.)

That's my procedure as well.

3 month pre-order when I load it up.

I bring it back to a month off near finishing it, and then bring it back again when I know the proofreading will be finished, or when it is finished.

The 3 months is because my health has in the past made a book take that long, even though at the moment, I'm in the 6-8 weeks range.
Genres: Space Opera/Fantasy/Cyberpunk, with elements of LitRPG and GameLit, with a touch of the Supernatural. Also Spiritual and Games.



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