Big news from a couple of the big platforms we use to round off the week. First comes a press release from Draft2Digital that brings the announcement that Smashwords will be accepting pre-orders for the first time. For me this brings all kinds of nostalgia. Like many indies who started in the late aughts, well into the internet era but before Kindle, Smashwords was the platform through which I made my first ever sale. I still occasionally wake up with cold sweats about its Meatgrinder (if you know, you know). So it's great to see them still moving forward.
ALLi News Editor Dan Holloway
The detail is this. Pre-orders can be listed up to twelve months in advance of release date. As per standard practice, payment is only taken on release date, though the order can be placed any time before. And the crucial detail for maximizing the impact of launch day is that all pre-order sales are added to release day sales and credited to that day's figures when calculating the sales rank. The press release notes that across other parts of Draft2Digital's reach, books available for pre-order perform significantly better at launch, but that only 20 percent of authors use pre-orders.
Smashwords Presales Option
At the same time, Smashwords is offering a Presales option. To be eligible for this, books will need to be listed for pre-order as well, but readers will be able to actually buy the book before official release. As I understand it, authors can even offer readers who do this a discount in exchange for adding their email to the author mailing list.
Spotify Goes Global
The other news comes from Spotify, who are now in the process of expanding their audiobook offering from the current twenty-two to the complete global market, amounting to 180 countries. This will happen between now and the end of the year. Spotify's director of audiobook partnerships, Duncan Bruce, explicitly makes the case that this benefits indie authors, noting that they can now bring local-language versions of their titles to all corners of the globe and can utilize the company's partnership with ElevenLabs to generate local-language narration.
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