The Bookish Mindset

Have you ever wondered why authors, publishers and everyone else always talks about pre-ordering books? There’s a brilliant reason so let’s talk about it.

Please remember this all comes with a precursor – it’s an absolute privilege to be able to spend money on extra joys like books. If you have the means to spend extra on books then this was meant for you. If you don’t, then this isn’t.

Pre-ordering books isn’t just about getting the book delivered on release day (but who doesn’t love some book post?), it’s also a really important sales figure too. Any pre-order sales that a book gets count towards the first week sales and that’s often (but not always) what contributes to best sellers lists.

Being featured on best sellers lists and the first weeks sales figures are used by publishers to determine the popularity of not only the book, but the author and genre too.

This is the reason it’s so important to support marginalised authors in this way: every book you buy from a marginalised author is telling that publisher that you want to hear more of their voices and stories.

If you want publishing to keep moving towards becoming more diverse then you need to vote with your money and pre-order the books.

A more inclusive publishing and literary sector benefits everyone.

Library holds and requests are wonderful too of course, I’ve got more coming on libraries in a future blog! Spoiler alert – they support authors financially too.

Pre-orders also really help out indie bookshops as it’s help them plan out sales figures and shop stock. I’ve got another blog planned on that too.

If reading more is something that you’re looking at doing this year then should check my reading challenge out here! Read nine books from nine prompts over the first six months of the year and be entered into a draw to win a bundle of bookish goodies.

If you like what you’ve read and would like to access more content, I’d love if you could take a look at my patreon and consider supporting my content on there too. Patreon supports also get monthly lists of new released books!

And don’t forget you can follow me on Instagram for more bookish content too.

Happy reading folks!

Last updated 17/01/2025