The Writer

Do pre-order campaigns really work?

IT’S NOT OFTEN THAT A TWEET will have staying power after it disappears from your feed, but this 2021 viral tweet by YA author Jenny Elder Moke still resonates with me: “I know this is very against popular discussion, but the idea of pre-orders being so important to a book’s success is just exhausting. People just…don’t shop that way. Books are a tactile thing, and they’re often a browsing experience. People want to peruse at a bookstore.”

As the president of Books Forward, a literary publicity firm, I find the question of “how do

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