Publishing
Preorders are useful, but they can also make a draft feel like it has to behave in public before it is ready.
That seems to be the real decision for a lot of indie authors. Not “will this create buzz?” but “will this help me finish the book, or just turn every wobble into a small performance anxiety event?”
A preorder can be a useful deadline. It can also be a very tidy way of discovering that a manuscript is not, in fact, as finished as everyone hoped. The numbers may be fine. The nerves are another matter.
That seems to be the real decision for a lot of indie authors. Not “will this create buzz?” but “will this help me finish the book, or just turn every wobble into a small performance anxiety event?”
A preorder can be a useful deadline. It can also be a very tidy way of discovering that a manuscript is not, in fact, as finished as everyone hoped. The numbers may be fine. The nerves are another matter.
Preorders can also tempt people into treating a book like a product launch when it’s still behaving like a draft, which is a slightly absurd way to work. A manuscript usually needs silence, not a crowd. I’d rather miss a bit of early momentum than spend the last third of the book listening to my own pulse in the comments.