Don’t miss your pre-order deadline! #WriterWednesday #AmWriting #BookMarketing

Amazon allows indie authors to put a book up for pre-order as early as one year before the release date. And how awesome is that? If you are unable to write as quick as the dickens but want to profit from having a series of books, pre-orders are the way to go. After all, you want readers not only excited about the next book in the series but able to get their hands on that book (even if it is only as a pre-order). I could wax poetic about pre-orders for a while, but that’s not what this blog post is about. This blog post is about why you don’t want to miss your pre-order deadline.

Amazon penalties.

As an indie writer, the absolutely last thing you want is for Amazon to penalize you in any way. Trust me, I know. Yesterday, they decided one of my novels is a get skinny quick scheme and now I can’t use Amazon ads service. It takes forever to get out of the Amazon penalty box. If you cancel a pre-order on Amazon, you won’t be able to set up a pre-order for any eBook for one year. One year! Yikes! That’s some penalty. Trust me, you want to stay out of the box.

Reader expectations.

Not meeting reader expectations is actually the reason I started writing this blog post. Let me explain. I have a huge wish list on Amazon. HUGE! I check it every day to see if any books I’ve been eagerly awaiting have been released. One of my wish list books changed its release date to a month later. Bummer, but I can deal. Mostly. (Amazon allows you to delay your release date up to 30 days ONCE. After that, it’s into the penalty box.) But then I went to my wish list on the date of release and the book had disappeared. Poof! Where did it go? I searched for the book. Nothing. Then, I searched for the author. The book was no longer on the author’s Amazon page.

I was annoyed. This isn’t the first time this particular author promised a novel and then didn’t deliver. My response? I stopped following the author. I’m done. There’s nothing worse than having your expectations crushed. And this is exactly the reason why I advise indie authors to stick to their pre-release deadlines. As much as possible, of course. Life happens.

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For information about Amazon pre-orders, head over to KDP. Avoid the Amazon penalty box and angry readers and meet your pre-release deadline!