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Want to know the best time to promote your new product?

Before it's officially available!

Preselling is a powerful marketing strategy that everyone can benefit from. The presale period is so important, in fact, it should be the centerpiece of your marketing and promotional campaign. What is a presale? It's that period of time when you're in the final stretch, polishing up your new product and preparing for the big launch, but not quite ready to print and ship.

Presales offer several big benefits
#1: Takes the guesswork out of knowing how many books, etc to print ahead of time if you want to use bulk printing
#2: Helps offset the cost of printing, marketing, etc. by collecting payment for the product before you officially launch it.
#3: Generates good "buzz" to support stronger sales

How to generate interest in preorders
Preorders work wonders for building buzz and building excitement about your upcoming launch. They can lead to more sales initially and lead to sustained sales over time as well. But how can you convince readers to buy a product when it isn’t available to read yet?

Offer free swag: This is a popular strategy, and it works! Give readers an extra incentive to preorder and something that offers instant gratification to hold them over until official launch day.

Send a digital gift pack: If you're on a budget, this is a more economical version of swag. Send them downloads, recordings, exclusive short stories, extras they can print and add to the planner, etc.

Form a fan squad: If you have a group of friends and fans who are excited about your upcoming launch, harness that power by asking them to be your official launch team. Send them early copies so they can leave reviews and recommendations. Let them share details about the new book on their own social media and give them special links to let their followers pre-order.

Use your social media: Give your social media images an update by adding information or images about your upcoming launch. Have a strategy that takes readers on a journey to get them invested and excited such as cover reveals, printing snapshots, excerpts and more.

Send an email to subscribers: If you have a mailing list, (every author should), then you already have a group of people who are interested in what you are doing. Send them updates, build the excitement, and give them exclusive offers to support your presale offer.

How to set up your products for presales
It's easy to offer presales, here's what to do:

1. Set up a landing page and allow customers to pay you for the product ahead of time. Be sure to communicate clearly when customers should expect to receive their purchase.
2. At the close of the presale window, let Vervante know how many you need printed.
3. Send us an export from your shopping cart of all presale orders and we'll ship your planner or product to each of your customers.

Each person's situation might be different, so if you are planning on offering presales, it's always a good idea to consult with our publishing team so we can make sure you're optimizing each step. Just reach out at sales@vervante.com or schedule a 1-on-1 call using our online scheduler.

There's a lot of media and news swirling around USPS these days and how the pandemic has affected shipping rates. We've heard from many of you, so we checked our numbers to give you an idea of how shipping times are being affected. This chart shows the average number of days it took for packages to be delivered both in the U.S. and internationally using USPS services between June 1, 2020 and August 20, 2020.

Bottom line? Packages are still moving, but it's always good to include some extra time into your plans as the holiday and end-of-year sales season approaches.

For more information on shipping, postage and setting up your shopping cart click HERE. If you have any questions or need help, we're here for you at sales@vervante.com.

Recently we talked about the best methods for selling on Amazon, Etsy and your own website. Today we wanted to talk to you about another retail option that deserves your attention -- the Vervante Bookstore.
 
The Bookstore is an online storefront solution we offer exclusively to Vervante customers. It allows you to direct customers from your website or social media to your own product page in the Bookstore. We will process the credit card transactions and manage fulfillment and distribution.

This is a valuable option if you just don't want to deal with credit card processing and a merchant bank. All you need is a simple landing page and we take care of the rest.
 
Here are a few highlights of the advantages and rewards the Vervante Bookstore provides: 

• Online Storefront: Vervante authors can have product pages created for all their products 
• Author Bio Page: Similar to Amazon’s author bio pages, connect with your customers by sharing your story.
• Always In Stock: If you are using our print-on-demand (POD) services, your book or printed product is guaranteed to always be in stock.
• Peek Inside: Just like Amazon’s “Look Inside” feature, customers can see a sample of your book’s interior.
• Easy Sales Solution: You don’t need to set up complicated shopping carts or sales pages, we handle that for you.
• Database Growth: You have full access to your customer’s data.
• Higher Profits: You set the retail price for your product and pay us a 10% transaction fee. The buyer selects and pays for the shipping and postage. These are some of the best royalty numbers in the industry!
•  Full Access: You can login to your Bookstore account at any time to view activity, including customer data and email address.
• Book Launch / Pre-Order Support: Planning for a big holiday launch? Debuting a new daily planner for the New Year? You can use the Bookstore for pre-orders. Shipping estimates can be changed to show pre-order status and expected ship dates.

How to set up your sales pages in the Vervante Bookstore

Log in to your Vervante author account on our website, then navigate to the Vervante Bookstore page under the Services Menu. On that page you will see information about pricing and sales, a calculator to help determine royalties, and directions for submitting books or products to be listed in the Bookstore.
 
Once your listing is ready, each product will have a unique URL that you can use to direct online traffic to the sales page. If you would like to revise the product descriptions or your author page, please send requests with the final, approved content to customerservice@vervante.com. 
 
If you like the idea of simplified credit card processing, the Vervante Bookstore provides an easy, effective and streamlined way to connect with your customers and get your books and products where they need to be. For questions or help with using the online Vervante Bookstore, email us at customerservice@vervante.com or set up a call using our online scheduler.