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I opened pre-orders for my book, Framed, on February 4th, 2025. I set the eBook’s release day to February 28th. That mean a three-and-a-half-week pre-order period.
What I realized after posting a reddit thread about my journey as a first-time author was that people have wildly different ideas about pre-orders. There is quite a bit of competing information out there.
I decided to write this post not as an authoritative last word on the subject, but to help explain what I was thinking, what went well, and what I might change next time.
What is a Kindle Pre-Order?
Amazon offers authors the option to schedule releases of Kindle titles. This allows customers to order copies in advance.
For the author, this might mean more buzz and social proof in the lead-up to release day. It also allows customers to show support for their favorite authors or titles that interest them in a low-risk way. Customers aren’t charged anything until the book is released, and upon release the book is immediately downloaded.
Amazon requires that the final manuscripts for pre-orders are submitted 72 hours before the release date (GMT time). Even if the review is completed before then, the book will not release until the date. Mine became available at 12:04 AM on February 28th.
Why Enable Pre-Orders for eBooks?
If there’s a press campaign or an existing fanbase, the benefit of pre-orders is obvious. Accrue more sales, build momentum, whatever.
What about for the new author? One of the questions facing people like me is: “Why even bother?” I didn’t have a coherent media outreach plan and I wasn’t sure how many people from my subscriber list (which I’ve been building since 2016) were going to buy the book. Why not just publish when it was ready?
Setting a release date helped legitimize my final push. It was a strong motivator knowing that there was a real deadline and that Amazon would punish me if I didn’t submit my book in time (though, it’s worth mentioning, it is possible to ask for an extension). The nice thing about setting a release date is that Amazon will (except in cases where crazy amounts of edits are mandated and aren’t finished in a timely manner) publish the book on that date.
I really wanted the specific date of February 28th. Without using Amazon’s scheduling feature and instead clicking “Publish Now,” there would have been no guaranteeing that a book submitted on the 26th would have been published on the 28th. Perhaps it would have been published on the 27th.
Perhaps Amazon does give review priority to titles scheduled for release. I’ve seen complaints about very long review periods. Yet, these periods would be compatible with Amazon’s projected 72 hour return window. I haven’t read it anywhere, but it’s possible titles scheduled for release get priority.
The other thing is that a scheduled release will appear on Amazon. It can earn “New Release” sales designations and it can, theoretically, get organic sales from appearing in search.
Traditionally published titles tend to list on Amazon extremely early. Yesterday, I saw a title scheduled for release in November! Amazon doesn’t allow pre-orders for physical books.
Is there a “New Title Boost” that wears off?
On reddit and other websites, there are mentions of Amazon giving some priority rank or exposure to “new” titles. The idea is that authors shouldn’t rush to publish because this boost might be wasted before the book is available for immediate purchase or before a full-fledged marketing effort is made.
Although the concern is valid if such a thing exists, I couldn’t find any supporting evidence and there is nothing in Amazon’s documentation.
It makes sense that there will be some scaling/weighting of sales or click-throughs for new titles, but Amazon’s search algorithms aren’t well reverse-engineered or understood (at least, compared to traditional search engines).
My advice is not to worry about this. Someone asked on reddit if I saw a drop off after thirty days. I definitely did not.
New Release Rankings
If an author has a release date in mind, the next consideration is whether it’s worth trying to climb the new release rankings. It’s not particularly meaningful (I hit #1 in three genres with like ten first-day sales), but it could drive momentum. Organic presales from Amazon search aren’t something that the debut author should be searching for, but they are possible.
It’s important to understand a niche and estimate sales numbers to see what might be required to earn a “New Release” rank. I went in blind. Publisher Rocket could be used to home in on exactly what number of sales an existing new release in a genre has earned. I later used it on my path to becoming a #1 best seller in “Social Aspects of the Internet,” which I reached on March 8th, 2025.
There is some time weighting in the sales numbers. Don’t expect 10 sales on day one to be extrapolated to 300 sales in Amazon’s ranking algorithm, but the weighting of recent sales does allow new-new titles to compete with old-new titles. The designation is supposed to disappear thirty days after release.
My understanding is that a book’s presale period doesn’t factor into when the designation disappears. A book can compete on the “New Release” chart for the entirety of its presale period + 30 days. My book hasn’t been out for thirty days yet, but the presale began more than thirty days ago, and it’s still #1 on the charts.
Some people have warned against how long presale periods might affect the scaling or weighting of sales. I say, yes, maybe to a small extent this is true, but the only spot that matters is #1! My guidance is that an author is either close to #1 or you’re not. It’s debatable whether it’s worth trying to stack sales to ascend the ranking one day and then fall precipitously the next day.
What would I have changed?
I saw success early in my presale period. As soon as I earned the #1 New Release honor, I wanted to hold onto it! Checking my rank and continuing to hustle sales became a daily task of mine. Ultimately, I don’t believe I got any organic sales because of this ranking badge. There is simply no way to know whether it influenced purchase decisions, especially since most of the people purchasing were friends, family, and former colleagues.
If I had to redo it, I would have taken the time to understand how many sales it would have taken to earn the top spot. I then would have estimated my sales from all channels (personal, subscriber, blog referral, ads, organic) and chosen my preorder length based on that.
My guidance is that anyone hoping to compete for the #1 rank should avoid days where sales might be zero. A shorter pre-order period means less zero sale days.
Believe it or not, I had four or five “zero sale” days during my preorder period. These days didn’t affect my overall rank that much, but I lost the top spot on those days. Getting my first book scheduled was cathartic, but a fourteen day pre-order period would have been ideal considering that I did find myself wanting to play the rankings game.
Conclusion
The length of the pre-order period is one of many unexpected decisions that the new author will have to make. My advice is to set a two week pre-order period. It will allow you to do some promotion during downtime during the final editing of your book and perhaps determine how many people are interested in buying it.
Rankings are cool when you’re winning, but largely meaningless. The sales numbers required to hit #1 in the genres for my first book were menial–anyone could have gamed the #1 spot.
What was your experience with pre-orders? Is there anything that I missed?
