Dear All, Who has some personal experience with putting their books up for pre order on Amazon? I want to know if on your launch day your pre orders help your ranking at all. Thanks a lot The reason I am asking is I have heard two totally different versions: one says the pre orders count as sales on the launch day, thus heavily boosting the ranking. An Amazon KDP specialist called me the other day and confirmed that. The other says while it is true that pre orders count as sale on luanch day, this has nothing to do with ranking and simple means you get paid on that day. In fact, many authors have reported pre order hurts your ranking at launch day since all your orders are scattered throughout several weeks and you won't get the boost in ranking you would have gotten otherwise. Thanks a lot, Sean Quote Like Report Delete Edit
For self publishers the launch spike isn't all that anyway... its mostly about the long tail. Personally I never use preorder because I don't want a deadline.