Pre-ordering. When should you?

[Charles Gray]

A major, major bugaboo in this business seemsto be the company that offers preorders and then doesn't get the product ready for a long time or worse, never gets it off the ground at all.

So when should you offer pre-orders? Is it even that good of an idea for any company either then the big ones? I.E. when I get started, It'll be me, myself and I, and all teh good intentions in the world won't help If I get hit by a car- unlike WW, there isn't any "B" writer to take over.

[LMPjr007]

A major, major bugaboo in this business seemsto be the company that offers preorders and then doesn't get the product ready for a long time or worse, never gets it off the ground at all.

So when should you offer pre-orders? Is it even that good of an idea for any company either then the big ones? I.E. when I get started, It'll be me, myself and I, and all teh good intentions in the world won't help If I get hit by a car- unlike WW, there isn't any "B" writer to take over.

The minimum should be all the writing and artwork is done a back to the publisher and through the editing phase. At that point it should just need to go to the layout phase and off to the printer.

[brettmb]

Personally, I like to wait until either I have a proof copy in my hands or I'm waiting for one. This way I have all the pricing details and have a better idea of when it will be available.

[Charles Gray]

In the case of PDF's, that would seem to indicate that you should never bother with preorders, given that when you have a proof, it's probably very, very close to being available.

[brettmb]

Not necessarily. You can do pre-orders of a PDF a month or two in advance if you have all the specs tied down and it's a fairly major release.

[Destriarch]

I'd usually say 'when you're ready to go to print' but I'm currently having difficulty getting hold of my printing partners - and have been for almost a month now - in order to fix some very minor points in the proof copy. So I'd now say 'only once you have a satisfactory proof copy in hand and the production run dates are confirmed.'

Ash