I recently put the first installment of my horror serial, The Entity, up for pre-order on Amazon. I’ve noticed a few things since then, and they’re all pretty interesting as far as I’m concerned. I’m also left with a few questions.
All the units of The Entity that I have sold so far have registered my book so that it has appeared on the Horror-Comedy list on Kindle. What I wonder is how these early sales will affect the launch day? I believe Amazon said something about the pre-orders counting towards your launch day number, so I’m interested to see how that works once September 15th comes around.
Whatever happens, it’s exciting to be able to schedule an exact release date for a book now as opposed to trying to time it just-so. With the pre-order option, I know for sure that my book will be released on the exact date that I specify. I encourage any other indie authors to try it out if they have an upcoming work – but I will caution you and say that Amazon warns that if you are not finished the book and you miss your upload date (a week or so ahead of publication date) then you will no longer be allowed to use the pre-order option. So, it’s better to upload your finished product than to wait and try to tweak things up until the last minute.
Those are my thoughts and observations when it comes to using the pre-order option so far!
Franklin Kendrick 
Be to sure to let us know your thoughts after Sept. 15! 🙂
I’ll be giving the pre-order option a try late next month once my story is formatted and final file’s are all on-hand. I’m curious to see how it will go, but I don’t have much of a following so that could certainly skew things… Still, it’s a very cool and much welcome option to have as an indie, and may help make marketing a bit easier in terms of setting up promos through various outlets like esoda or BookBub.
Good luck with the release!
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Thanks, Michael! I will definitely give an update once I see the entire thing in action.
I know it is very tricky to time releases through Kindle because you never know if it really will take two days for the book to be processed and approved before it shows up on Amazon. When The Vengeance Chronicles Vol. 2 came out, it was actually three days before I was able to purchase it, so it was in limbo after being submitted. I suppose that made me want the book even more because I had to wait for it, but must have been frustrating for the author who was expecting a certain date.
Whatever happens, once the book is out there, at least it’s out there!
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I was lucky to not have any unusual delays, except for on the iBookstore via Smashwords. That was very frustrating for me, but since it went live I haven’t given it another thought. lol
But yeah, as far as Kindle goes, this will be terrific for peace of mind.
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