Preorder Campaigns 101
Howdy howdy howdy! I’ve been promising for a while over on Twitter that I’d do a post about preorder campaigns for YA books. Since the graphics are pretty text-heavy, I’m making this first draft available here for text readers! There’s some changes in phrasing, but it should be largely the same. Enjoy!
WHAT IS A PREORDER CAMPAIGN
- A preorder campaign is a campaign launched prior to the release of a piece of media with the general goal of incentivizing consumers to preorder the content.
- I’ll be focusing on campaigns for traditionally-published books, specifically in the context of YA. (Please do not ask me about other age categories.)
- Broadly speaking, the goal is to incentivize preorders. However, it’s also a powerful marketing tool (which we’ll dig into later.)
BASIC GLOSSARY:
- Production – the process of designing and obtaining the finished product. Purchasing stickers from a third party, cranking out buttons on ye olde button maker, this is all production.
- Fulfilment – the process of moving the finished product into the hands of the consumer. Collecting mailing addresses, paying for postage, this all falls under Fulfilment.
- Scope – the considerations of time, money, and effort that need to go into your campaign.
MINIMAL CONSIDERATIONS
WHAT YOU OFFER:
Digital incentives vs Physical incentives – both have their upsides and downsides!
WHO IS ELIGIBLE:
Domestic vs International – this can be Complicated™ for many reasons, including different countries’ laws regarding giveaways/sweepstakes.
WHO’S RUNNING THE CAMPAIGN:
Do you have the time, money, and bandwidth to run a preorder campaign? Have you asked your publisher if they’ll assist? (It’s a big “if”.)
WHY YOU SHOULD RUN A CAMPAIGN
- Preorders count towards your first week of sales! It’s a great way to help beef up those numbers.
- Good excuse to remind people to preorder! Just tweeting “preorder my book” can feel gauche, but “you have one week left to qualify for the preorder campaign” feels helpful for self-conscious folks.
- Drum up enthusiasm! Gives people something to engage with.
- Raises the profile – ever find yourself discovering a book because of fanart? There’s the old adage about seeing something seven times before buying it, which may or may not be true, but I guarantee this is ONE TIME when exposure is your friend.
- Word of mouth – A lot more work goes into pushing word of mouth than people realize. How often have Goodreads reviews tipped your decision on whether to buy or borrow a book? Or your favorite booktuber’s opinion? A really savvy preorder campaign will give the recipient content worth showing off on their own social media, thus generating organic promo.
WHY YOU SHOULDN’T
- It’s EXPENSIVE to be effective. All the things that can make swag stand out—metallic foil, holographic paper, elaborate art, unusual items—cost a LOT. And it’s hard to gauge the best trade-off between expense and return. If your preorder campaign is underwhelming, you may end up with significant leftovers; if you offer something cool but more costly, counting on fewer preorders, you risk having TOO much interest and needing to scramble to order more. And SHIPPING. We’ll get into shipping.
- It’s TIME-CONSUMING if you’re running it on your own. You need to place and manage swag orders, set up forms to collect mailing information, answer questions from participants, address and stuff envelopes… and usually you need to do it around publishing deadlines and publicity work for your upcoming release. Heaven help you if you also have a day job and/or parenting duties.
- It’s not going to be the reason someone buys your book. It’s the difference between a preorder and a sale, not between a sale and no sale. If someone is on the fence, stickers aren’t going to change their mind.
- Unless the response is absolutely WILD (like 1000+ preorders), it will not make or break your first week of sales. It’s estimated it takes ~5,000 sales in a week to break onto the NYT YA bestseller list, and it’s rare to break 500 preorders. For debuts in particular, you are an unknown quantity to most of book world, and it’s your publisher’s job to introduce you to readers at large.
- SIDEBAR: The unfortunate reality is that there is nothing newer authors can do on their own that will be equal to a traditional publisher’s marketing engine. You could be shelling out five figures on a preorder campaign, but it won’t get your book in front of school & library buyers, it won’t land with a splash in front of booksellers, it won’t get features or ads in major publications, it won’t print and send out hundreds of ARCs.
- If you don’t see this manifesting for your book, that can be frustrating and painful. The best thing you can do as a new author is focus on expanding your platform, as I have seen publishers change course based on early enthusiasm. (This is…. very rare.) But at the end of the day, don’t blame yourself or your book, but a spreadsheet you have no control over.
COMMON PITFALLS:
- Lack of general preparation. Do your best to think through ALL the logistics. When do you need to order the swag so it arrives in time? Is your address collection form broken out by Name/Address Line 1/Address Line 2 or is it a paragraph? (Pro tip: break it out by line so you can use Mail Merge and print labels instead of addressing the envelopes by hand.) How are you verifying preorders? Are your communications clear and consistent, so you don’t have people referring to outdated information?
- Mismatch of incentive vs. intent. I plan to get more in-depth with this in another post, but what are you trying to accomplish with your preorder incentive? Will a deleted scene be appealing for a standalone or series starter when the reader hasn’t met the characters yet? Would someone who HASN’T read the book wear the enamel pin? (Don’t do enamel pins.) For a sequel, are you offering something a subscription box can and has done better?
- Budget. $50 on stickers, $30 on candles, $1600 on shipping someone who is good with budgets please help. For readers who are wondering why you get so much flat swag, it’s because it’s all fun and games until you’re paying $4 PER preorder on shipping alone. (Now would be a good time to note that the standard royalty rate shakes out to $2-$3 per hardcover.) On the flip side, smaller flat swag can be sent via a single 55-cent stamp, and generally has a lower per-unit production cost. And it’s critical not just to budget your money, but like I noted before, your time.
- ENAMEL PINS. Just don’t. Just…. don’t. Seriously, they are expensive to make, prone to defects, artists sell them for $10-$20 a pop, and you want to PAY $4 EACH to MAIL THEM TO PEOPLE FOR FREE?!?! Not to mention they’re not great as a promo item. If you just use a book cover image, people won’t want to wear an ad. If you use a symbol or quote from the book, it’s only going to register with people who HAVE read your book already AND who see the pin. Save it for merch once your book has a following. Or let your publisher handle it. Or just throw a smooth grand into an incinerator and roast marshmallows and think about all the time and money YOU’RE STILL SAVING NOT DOING PINS.
That’s all for now, but eventually I’ll be doing a deeper dive on what makes swag effective and how that changes depending on your goals. If there’s any other topics about preorder campaigns, swag, etc. you’d like me to tackle, let me know in the comments!