How to use Pre-Orders?

I have a splash page to alert the world that my book, my biography, about a basketball star(ette), will be launching in a few months. I was wondering how to use "pre-orders."

I have the link set up on my page, "Click here to pre-order this incredible book"

Now, what URL do I put there? Who keeps track of the pre-orders, me? or the publisher? Actually I am not using a publisher, per advice here (thank you), I am going to use Gumroad after I get the copyediting done. I don't want to be a prisoner of the (Big River).

Do I get the advance money for pre-orders, or does the customer pay only when the book is actually shipped?

If there are a lot of pre-orders, how can you use this good news to leverage your sales?

How about if I have a link to pre-order, and at the same time, allow the orderer to leave a comment relating to the subject of the biography?

Thanks for any advice.

 

Sorry, I don't know the answers to your questions, but it seems like Gumroad (which I had never heard of) would be the best people to ask. I'd question your attitude about Amazon, though. I read this statistic just this morning: "There are two verticals where Amazon receives the majority of US ecommerce sales: books/music/video (83.2% of all US ecommerce sales in 2021) [emphasis mine] ...". If you really want to sell your book, you're only going to be reaching 16.8% of online buyers if you don't sell on Amazon.

 

Yes, you are right, I just wish there was an alternate reality.

I remember my dad telling me, as a youth, why communism was bad. "Well, kid, in the Soviet Union, people can't go shopping at different stores. There's no free enterprise. Everybody has to go shopping to the same store. Everybody has to go to this one, big store." (called GUM).

Now Russia is a true marketplace, and the US has Walmart and Amazon.

 

But if you sign up with Amazon, the deal is you can only deal with Amazon, nobody else. And Amazon tells you how much you can sell your book for.

 

I can't answer a lot of your questions, but one I do know is about one of the bonuses to putting your book on pre-order for a good, long while is that it is the best free exposure you can hope for. Because while all the rest of your marketing is paid for to get ads and campaigns going - just to highlight your product is available, what the pre-order does is add your book to a list, obviously entitled "Pre-Order" or "Coming Soon" or "Upcoming Releases," depending upon the platform.

Readers SCOUR those lists for new things to read. The closer to release your book gets, the higher up the list it gets and becomes more prominent. You have a free advertisement for your book, essentially, because it is your listing on that platform.

First-time authors are so happy and eager when they complete their first book, and are so anxious to get their book up for sale to say "It's out there, yey!" (me included when I first released!) that they don't see the benefits of a good, long pre-order waiting time. You ideally want at least 3 weeks, a month to maximize the amount of people who are scouring these lists and find your book.
It doesn't guarantee success, that still entirely depends upon your book and its quality. But it gives it the best chance of success... and more importantly, you don't have to pay anything to get that free advertising.