Some notes before we begin

How to make a book preorder launch plan

Do not scroll over this section. It is vital to your success.

The first step I take, no matter WHICH large project I’m tackling, is to braindump all my ideas.

I write out—usually on paper at first—all of my ideas, goals, to-dos, and aspirations surrounding the event.

This is a no-judgement zone. This is just a list of everything I can think of that needs doing: emails. Social media posts. Random promotion ideas.

At this time, I also picked a date for the pre-order launch AND the book launch itself. If I don't have a firm deadline, I won't hold myself to the work.

I decided to run the preorder event for about two weeks, starting in late May, and ending in early June. I wanted to give people enough time to place their orders and still create urgency.

Once I’d created a rough framework for how I wanted to run the event and an idea mine of what I wanted to give it "pizazz", I opened Asana.

Asana is an online task manager. I use it for my big-picture plans and the assigning of tasks by project, by week, and by day.

My bullet journal is my weekly/day-by-day breakdown, as well as my place for reflection on goals and monthly/annual aspirations.

These are the two trusty planning tools that keep me organized.

I created a new section in my Marketing 2020 project for The Midnight Tablet pre-order and wrote out each task. Then each task gets assigned a due-date. This is critical! Even if I’m not sure if each task will get done on THAT day, assigning a due-date first allows me to play with timing later.

You can do this exercise for a book preorder campaign or a book launch event—any kind of book promotion. Grab the PDF companion worksheet below to get started.

Answer these two questions, and you'll clinch it.

The trick is: it's not about you.

You can buy books whenever you want when they’re released, from whatever marketplace you desire, in whatever format is available.

People are spoiled for choice.

That’s why it was REALLY important to create incentives and stress the importance of why preordering is good for the customer (and for me).

The benefit of being an independent author is readers want to support your creativity. If they're aware of the channels to purchase your books that benefit you, the people inclined to support creatives will go out of their way to buy on those channels. I say that from experience. The benefit for the customer then becomes that feeling of supporting an independent creator.

People buy things that make statements about themselves.

People buy from me because they want that connection with the creator. They get their book signed. They get to chat with me. They get to stand inside my little world, and hopefully, be transported and inspired.

But not everyone cares about where or how a book is glued together or who the author is. Many buy for the price.

I thought—I could discount the book and let that be the special deal. I could have done that. That’s a standard, respectable choice.

But here’s the thing about discounts. Margins on books are so thin, it doesn’t make sense to offer large discounts on single books—especially when I also have to SHIP them to a customer. I’m in Canada, and shipping is nightmarishly expensive.

So if the main incentive for buying wasn’t a discount, something else had to create urgency to incentivize my audience to buy, while also hopefully intriguing some new folks who wanted to get in on the action.

Here are some elements I introduced into the book preorder to incentivize and create urgency.

In person, I can successfully convey and offer an experience that is conducive to buying. Online? That’s tougher. I have to bridge a larger gap to reach them, and usually, it takes longer to warm them up.

Purchase Tiers: HOW is your customer going to buy from you?

Even if you understand your customer and you’ve given them a timeframe to buy from you now, you still have to offer them the appropriate product and price point to seal the deal.

Based on my knowledge from selling in person, I created four purchase tiers for my customers.

Four choices is a LOT for any campaign, in my opinion. You want to make the choice EASY for the customer, so they’re not overwhelmed. However, again, because this preorder was for a sequel, I had to be willing to take the risk of overwhelm so I could appeal to a broader audience.

I also offered free shipping for every tier. I thought of charging shipping for the single book tier—but free shipping for everything just eliminated a lot of sales barriers. I could still make a small profit on the single-book orders (most of the time, see the results below for a more in-depth explanation).

My goal was to allow other people in my audience, who hadn’t bought from me yet, to expand their collection and have a good buying experience from me.

Now that the book preorder campaign was beginning to take shape, I had to drill deeper on the actual tasks—the ideas I’d written out before—to make it all happen.

The Major Backbone Tasks of the Book Preorder Campaign

Here are the major tasks I completed to make this book preorder a success:

• Creating the email sequence
• Designed the sales page
• Created a video to explain the preorder
• Created promotional social media graphics
• Set up and integrated a new shopping cart system
• Created bonuses

Each of these tasks could be a separate article (maybe someday!), but for now I’ll give an overview.

To be clear: you don’t have to do everything I’ve done to make your book preorder or book launch campaign successful, but I think some of these (especially the email sequence!)

How to create an email sequence for your book preorder

You might be wondering, why not just send one or two emails about the preorder, and let that be that?

Well, for the same reason you wouldn’t stand on your lawn and yell “BOOKS FOR SALE” and expect that to make a meaningful impact.

Sure, your neighbours may hear and come out to inquire further. But it takes considerable effort, nurturing, and time for people to discover you and your products AND THEN they have to trust you with their money.

Email is a big part of that.

This took considerable time, more time than I had originally anticipated or accounted for.

For this preorder campaign, I designed a multi-part email sequence educating people about the books and the preorder process. It was important to address why they should buy from me and attempt to alleviate any and all hesitations they might have had.

If you're an author and you're following along this process, your email sequence should address the following questions:

• What are you selling?
• Why are you selling it—and why now?
• Why might someone NOT want to buy this from you (right now)?
• Do you have any testimonials/reviews?
• Why should your customer buy from YOU?

Remember that work we did at the beginning? This is the payoff. Those deep whys and hows become an integral part of your email marketing. 

Your sequence may look something like this

Depending on how long your preorder or book launch event is going on, you’ll spread these emails out over the course of the campaign.

My biggest advice is to address one point per email. One objection, one piece of behind-the-scenes lore, one specific FAQ. You don’t want to overload your audience!

(Says the woman who writes 6,000 word articles about publishing and marketing books…hahaha).

How to design a sales page for your book preorder

I have some fairly extensive WordPress knowledge so the challenge for me wasn’t in the technical making as it was in the technical designing.

You can have all the technical expertise in the world and still make a bad sales page.

Whether you’re creating a Kickstarter or a landing page on your website, you have to have a deep understanding of both your customer and why they buy from you.

You can’t make assumptions about where they’re at—or that they know anything about you or your books. You can’t assume they’ll care about you or what you have to offer. The sales page is your opportunity to lay it all out—why you’re offering what you offer.

There are multiple ways to approach this, but the sales page for my preorder went something like this:

• Introduction to the book and that this was a pre-order
• Video explaining everything
• Overview of who I was and what I do
• Overview of the book series (remember, I was launching a preorder for a SEQUEL).
• You might like this book (and the series) if you also like…
• Overview of the four bundles
• Why you should pre-order from me, now—common objections
• Overview of the bonuses
• How to pre-order (short video tutorial on adding things to cart)
• Buy links

Of course, in each section, you want to link to the buy section at the bottom of your page.

Looking back on it now, months later, there are elements I would have placed differently. For example, I could have placed the “about me” section further down and front-loaded the book series explanation.

You have to be willing to experiment when you are creating a sales page for your book—and remember, selling books is different than selling say, an online course or anything else, really. Book people WANT to know who you are. They want that personal connection.

It's really easy to spend forever tweaking colours and images...and then get lost in the entire process. That's why deadlines and end dates for ALL of these tasks are essential. There has to be a time when you throw up your hands and say "I'm done!"

Integrating the Special Tech

In many of the Facebook communities I’m part of, I often see comments like, “I don’t understand the tech” or “I’m not tech-minded” or “How do I do ABC tech thing?”

Even though I understand and implement a lot of the “tech” things IN my business (read: fancy, seemingly magical solutions on my website that make everything work, including the website itself), I don’t necessarily consider myself tech-minded.

I am just very interested and committed to understanding solutions that could work in my business.

And those solutions just happen to be technical, most of the time.

I wanted to create real urgency with my book preorder. I also didn’t want people to get lost on my website OR distracted by other products. During the preorder, I wanted them to understand the value of the book and the book series, choose their tier, place their order, and feel GOOD about the process.

I used a lockdown countdown timer (Thrive Ultimatum) that would automatically seal the sales and checkout page at midnight when the preorder ended. Sure, I could have just taken down the page…but inevitably there are people who get to the party late and it’s better for them to see a “you missed it!” page than a 404.

The countdown timer also displayed at the bottom of every page on my website, as it contained a button that linked to the preorder sales page. Even if people were visiting my site for reasons other than the preorder, they would have seen I had a special event going on. I could also customize the look of the countdown timer banner so it matched the texturing on the book, so that was a lot of fun too.

I also bought a whole new cart system during my prep for this preorder and used this event as a test run. I could have used my regular checkout on the Faery Ink Press website, but I didn’t want people getting lost, confused, or distracted when adding orders to cart.

I invested heavily. But all of these tools aren’t just for this preorder. I can use them for any future events I hold.

The Fear & Limiting Beliefs

The truth is, I almost didn’t create the preorder video. It was on my list and seemed like a great idea to further legitimize the preorder campaign.

Except...

It's kind of a silly thing to be so dark about. It’s just a sales video, the kind of explainer you’d make for a Kickstarter or crowdfunding campaign. That’s easy for me to write this, months later, but from my notes back then? It was so stressful.

During the month leading up to this pre-order, I meditated for 20-40 minutes per day, for 30 days. I journaled it (and I may blog about this experience here as well). This helped me be more introspective and more objective about my limiting beliefs so I could get on with the campaign.

Without this work behind-the-scenes, I’m not sure I would have had the guts to undertake the video. I’ve fallen off the meditation bandwagon for the time being, but I know I should get back on because of the impact it had during this stressful time.

Creating a Video to Explain the Preorder Campaign

I wrote the script—word for word, what I wanted to say about the preorder—and on a Saturday afternoon, my now-husband Dave helped me film the entire thing with his equipment. We even converted my tablet-laptop into a teleprompter!

It took a lot longer than I expected to film everything. I had to read everything perfectly into the camera, and that wasn't easy. We also did two takes of the video—one from a wide angle and one close up. This allowed for some variety during the editing process (cutting to and from each angle) and gives a crisper result than just filming wide and zooming in during post-production.

The video turned out SO GOOD and made the whole campaign feel professional. Dave made quick work of the editing for me while I made us dinner! I believe the video is still on my Instagram, if you want to check it out.

Creating the bonuses

If I wasn’t going to offer a substantial discount on the preorder price, I thought it would be a good idea to offer bonus items or experiences instead. Everyone who ordered would have access to the bonuses, no matter the purchase tier.

This isn’t a new concept—it’s a common tactic when selling digital content, especially digital courses. 

So here was the challenge: what can you create for your audience that is real and useful, but doesn’t break the bank to produce, and ships for next to nothing?

Stickers, buttons, other merch? Sure. There’s plenty of that in the book community and some readers love that. Honestly, I’m not one for knick-knacks, so my initial instinct is to gravitate towards a different idea. Plus, stickers and buttons cost money to produce, and are just another thing to try and fit in the envelope/parcel.

I spent a lot of time humming and hawing over this because I wanted three bonuses. Three is a substantial number and I wanted all three bonuses to be enough to make someone pause and take a chance on my work AND be useful/substantial to a fan of the series.

The three bonuses I came up with were:

• A reading challenge printable
• A personality quiz that sorted you into one of the factions within The Violet Fox Series universe.
• Discussion questions for book series as a whole.

All of these were digital and accessible after purchase. I had a lot of fun creating the personality quiz! Overall, these took a lot of forethought to come up with, but weren’t too strenuous to create, and I think added some depth to the offering.

Admittedly, I did have trouble positioning these bonuses. Explaining there were four purchase tiers and three bonuses and order now before mid-June…it does get to be a LOT. I just really, really, wanted to show up in the best way possible and make the book preorder a no-brainer.

Ready…Set…Preorder!

In the week leading up to the event, there was lots to finish and more importantly—TEST. After I went through everything—the sales page, the checkouts, the emails—I had my sister run through it too. We caught a couple of critical errors where the right email wasn’t firing upon purchase, so YAY thank you Jessie!!

The morning of the preorder, I woke up early. I was calm. I had worked really hard to get everything done. My emails were scheduled. It was happening now and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

The first email, to my early-bird readers, went out at 7am. 

I reminded myself of an old mantra I had, selling at the markets: there’s always someone who will buy. All it takes is one to break the no-sales streak.

And if I had no one? Well, I gave it my best shot.

Three-and-a-half hours later, I had my first sale. Fifteen minutes later, my second. Half an hour later, my third.

And then other. And another. And a whole lot more.

The first "real" email, to the rest of the list, went out at 11am. I inhaled sharply when that one hit my inbox. No takebacks now.

The emails were working. Money was coming in.

People were ordering. The preorder was happening!!

This shouldn’t have been surprising to me. I sold books all the time in person at comic conventions and craft shows. I had gotten comfortable with my in-person sales process. But selling online? Out in the open? MORE in the open than a closed, paid event?

I could have hung up the towel here—but my work was far from done.

Promoting the Preorder

Promoting is likely the HARDEST part of all of this.

You can write the emails, create the sales page and incentives, and then be too burnt out or tired to show up online to tell people about it.

I had to make sure that all of my work wasn’t in vain.

While I’d managed to create and schedule my email sequence and construct some social media posts BEFORE the book preorder launch, I ran out of time to create and schedule everything I wanted for Instagram and Facebook. This meant each day, I was creating assets for social media.

This wasn’t terrible, but it was a nuisance. Ideally, that should all be done in advance so I would be free to engage with my audience and answer questions on the fly.

This was also before I’d gotten my social media marketing strategy in order, which you can read more about here.

I ran some Facebook ads, which I can get fairly decent results from during the best of times—but ever since the pandemic hit, Facebook ads have been very up and down for me. Ultimately, I ended up turning off the ads as they weren’t performing as I’d predicted.

If this were for the first book in a brand-new series, I wouldn’t have constrained myself so much. I would have gone bigger.

It’s easy to say now, months later, what I could have done. When you’re in the middle of the fear and uncertainty of a large project, undertakings that seem possible from the outside are burdensome and heavy. There does come a point when you are D.O.N.E. with it all, and I had to accept that I had reached that point.

Each day, I attempted to post about the preorder campaign at least once on social media, in addition to the emails going out on their set schedules.

For the life of the campaign, I sent 9 emails during the campaign period (2-3 weeks), which included a teaser email days before the campaign began, an early-bird email to people who had specifically requested to be notified about The Midnight Tablet, and a survey about a week after the campaign ended (more on that below).

In case you’re wondering: “Did anyone unsubscribe because you sent too many emails?”

Yep, absolutely. But nearly all of the people who unsubscribed weren’t engaging with my list anyway, some for years. I can’t be mad at people who aren’t interested and decide to leave. I’ve been there.

As I’ve told so many people, and no doubt you’ve read many times if you’re researching “how often to send an email to my list”: people have busy lives. They’re probably not keeping track how many times you email. Unless you’re annoyingly emailing every day (or multiple times a day), you’re likely not top of mind. A week can feel like a century nowadays.

During those last few hours of the preorder on June 11, Dave and I drove out to Marda Loop, got ourselves some Village Ice Cream, and walked around Garrison Woods—a picturesque, desirable suburb that is part British brownstones with WW1 street names with a smattering of fantastical architecture. It felt nice to get out of the house and imagine the future.

It felt even better to get back in the car after our walk and see the last few orders make its way in before the cart closed.

I’d done it. The preorder was over.

Sales Breakdown

To refresh your memory: I had four bundles in this book preorder campaign. Here was the order breakdown by percentage:

This distribution is more or less what I expected. Admittedly, I was hopeful for slightly more orders of “The Midnight Tablet and 2 others” bundle, as it seemed to be the most accessible point of entry of the four of them, but I really can't complain!

Important observations:

Feedback

About a week after the campaign ended, I conducted a survey of the people who didn’t participate in the preorder.

To be fair, only about 5% of my non-preordering list actually filled out the survey, but it was enough for me to gain some insight into what I can improve upon for next time. When one person speaks, it’s been my experience that at least ten people silently agree.

Some of the interesting responses I’ll highlight here.

The first question I asked was, “What reasons do you feel stopped you from pre-ordering The Midnight Tablet?”

The responses available for choice included:

• Too Expensive – Books were too pricey
• Uncertainty – I don’t know enough about you to make a purchase decision
• Strapped - my entertainment budget is stretched thin 
• Waiting for bookstore/favourite retailer release
• Confused – website and sale was too overwhelming/unclear
• I didn’t know a preorder was happening

Take a moment and guess which response item received the most votes.

The highest response, by far?  “Strapped.”

Upon first glance, this isn't the ideal clear winner you'd want. But I will take my wins where I can get them. This tells me I wasn’t too expensive for my audience, nor were they particularly hesitant to purchase. To the non-purchasers, it's a matter of budget and little else, which is understandable in the times we’re living in.

The other question from the survey I’ll highlight here was, “Was there anything about the preorder page or the checkout process that was confusing?”

The #1 answer: the bonuses were confusing. 

I had suspected this in my gut going in. Even though I did my best to position them, I 100% agree I could have been clearer.

The #2 answer: I didn’t go to the preorder page at all.

Now this is illuminating. I allowed people to add notes to their responses and there was a resounding theme to the additional comments: many people already have the first few books. Or they wanted to have them. And they were aware a preorder was happening – they just didn’t want to buy another book right then.

Had I waited until now, November 2020, to conduct the preorder, would I have gotten a bigger response? I’m honestly not sure about that and I don’t like dwelling on what-ifs. I’m glad it’s done and dusted. Now that I have a baseline experience, I can apply it to my future online events. I'd rather have that now so I can prepare for 2021.

Fulfillment

When the preorder ends for the public…my work as a publisher began.

Now I had all these orders to process, fulfill, and ship.

It. Took. Forever.

I had 30+ orders. You might be thinking, that doesn’t seem like a lot for one person to handle. You could knock that out in a day!

Maybe I could have, if I also didn’t have other deadlines and work to complete.

Like you, I may have severely underestimated the amount of time to pack an order takes. When I receive orders from my website, they don’t take a ton of time. I gather 1-3 books and sign them, print a receipt, put them in an envelope—you know, regular order fulfillment.

For this preorder, there were far more steps.

First, I sorted and excluded the eBook orders, as those would be auto-fulfilled by my electronic systems. I created and printed the receipts and sorted them by order type, depending on what bundle was ordered.

Then, I gathered the books from my storage area and lugged them up to where I was processing. My office got real messy, real fast.

About halfway through this process, I realized my largest envelopes were not large enough for my bundle orders, nor did I have enough of them. I had to source and order mailer boxes. This took more time as I measured, remeasured, consulted Canada Post about their mailer options, and did some other research.

Fortunately, there was a warehouse here in Calgary that specialized in such a thing and I was able to get the exact size I needed without placing a custom order. Phew!

Once I had all the books, supplies, and order forms gathered, I set to work signing, packaging, weighing, and buying postage. This was easily a weekend of work. I used Canada Post for domestic orders and Chit Chats for my international orders.

“It’s kind of like you’ve run a Kickstarter,” said my friend Sam, during our daily boss talks.

And that’s exactly how I felt. I’ve only run one crowdfunding campaign, a super long time ago, and this felt more…real somehow. I’d gone face-first into the preorder planning process and had my fingers in every pie, from beginning to end.

Why I consider this a success

It's easy to undertake something and declare it a success, especially since I’m purposefully not sharing financial information here. So here’s a couple of reasons why I’m satisfied with my results.

How I could improve my next book launch plan or preorder event

I spent a lot of time on the preorder campaign – and was completely burnt out when it came to the actual launch. For which, I sent out an email, made a social media post, and that's about it.

The time between the preorder and the launch date was only a month or two. The bonus of this was, I did the preorder event, the books arrived, and as soon as the event was over, I began the order fulfillment process.

That’s why I’ve created a book launch planning template based on my experience!

Get it delivered to your inbox by filling out the form here:

Let me know in the comments:

• Do you want to know more about my planning process?
• How do you like to promote your books?
• What scares you the most about book marketing?

Until next time! 🙂