On-Sale Date, Publication Date and Pre-Orders

The On-Sale Date and Publication Date determine when a book will be available for ordering through bookstores, retailers, and distribution partners (all known as sellers in this article). 

IMPORTANT NOTE: It is best to have the correct & final version you expect to be sent to customers uploaded and approved up to 30 days ahead of the publication date.

The Publication Date is the official release date of your book.

The On-Sale Date is the date when "sellers" are allowed to sell your book.

Pre-orders are sales that accumulate before the on-sale date is reached.

QUICK LINKS:

Retailers & Distribution Partners- Book Information on their Websites

Printing and Shipping Timeline for Books with an On-Sale Date

Pre-Order Sales Reporting

Changes to Files- Uploading Revised Files

Can I Change the On-Sale Date?

Important things for you to know if you decide to use a future on-sale date for pre-ordering of your book

• The on-sale date is optional and is not required. 
• Not all sellers recognize an on-sale date. 
• Use the same date for the publication date and on-sale date. Having a different date for an on-sale date and publication date can cause problems with the stock status message and order fulfillment for a title on some websites. To avoid these problems, use matching dates for both.
• If you set an on-sale date for your book, it will not be available for sale or delivery to readers until that date. 
• Some sellers will accept orders for the book before the on-sale date, known as "preorders" or "presales." The order ships from the seller to the consumer on or after the on-sale date.
• You can set a publication date and an on-sale date for an ebook, but some ebook sellers only recognize the publication date. Ebook sellers will accept preorders for the ebook if the publication date is in the future.

Preorders

If you want to allow preorders or presales of your book, you must select an on-sale date and a publication date, which should be the same date. Set both dates far enough in the future, 30 days minimum from when you set up your title and upload your files, so you will have time to order a printed copy or proof and have your first print run produced at least a month before your publication date. Allowing extra time will help if there should be any unexpected delays.

Retailers & Distribution Partners- Book Information on their Websites 

Ingram sends the information for your book, including on-sale and publication dates, to the sellers to post on their website. We cannot guarantee how sellers will list titles. 
You may see a website listing your book as available for ordering with no mention of pre-orders. 

Printing and Shipping Timeline for Books with an On-Sale Date

Ingram uses the on-sale date to decide when to print and ship books to sellers so the books reach their destination by the on-sale date. There are several factors that are considered to determine when to start printing and shipping books, including the current print volume and the end destination. 

 Ingram may begin printing titles as soon as the title is enabled for distribution.

Changes to Files- Uploading Revised Files

If your book has an on-sale date and you need to upload revised files for your book, it is best to have the final files uploaded and the eproof approved before adding distribution services to avoid file processing delays.

If you upload revised files after you add distribution, there is a greater risk your latest files won't be the ones printed and shipped. 

If the book is listed as available on websites for pre-sales and you upload revised files, we pull the book from production to process and replace the files; this means it is no longer available to sellers in our distribution network. 

Uploading revised files after a book has distribution services added can cause delays with the revision process if we have received orders from sellers and are printing the book to ship before the on-sale date. The revision will not be processed until all of the orders are printed and shipped. If we continue to receive orders every day, the revised files are not processed until all orders have been printed and shipped. 

If you upload revised files too many times, too often, some retailers may give incorrect availability messaging on their websites. In this situation, you should contact the support team to help resolve this.

Can I Change the On-Sale Date?

We use the on-sale date listed for the title at the time distribution services are added by the publisher.

Once approved for distribution the On-Sale date is ''locked' and cannot be amended. Please ensure this date is correct before approving your book.

Setting future publication and on-sale dates in conjunction with a solid marketing plan can advance your book's reach. Just remember to engage your readers while driving them to your book.