Worth The Wait

277/365 | Deciding whether or not to pre-order new books.

Jun 05, 2026

Delayed gratification is cool and it’s not that hard to pull off.

A while back, I heard Austin Kleon was releasing a new book because I subscribe to his weekly newsletter. He typically shares a collection of links to things he’s into lately with a short tidbit about them. Occasionally, he includes announcements about his own stuff. This was one such occasion.

I want to hate the pre-order pipeline that’s become a mandatory part of publishing. I really do. But, there’s one aspect of it a like a lot.

Authors write books, publishers distribute them, and each gets a cut of the profit.

Fair enough.

But, the pre-order option is a poison pill dressed as a marketing campaign. The publisher tasks the author with becoming a full-stack marketer to “create a buzz” for their book like it’s a product launch. However, if the pre-sale doesn’t generate enough confirmed interest in the form of revenue, the publisher pulls the plug so they won’t waste resources promoting something they think won’t sell.

It just seems like this doesn’t accurately reflect the quality of the book, whatsoever... right? This type of pre-sale pipeline only measures the author’s marketing savvy; which, is supposed to be the job of the publisher. That’s why they’re getting a cut of the profit. What’s more, pre-sale numbers are factored into the “first week” sale numbers that get evaluated for best-seller status.

See what I’m saying??

Anyway.

There's something I do like about the pre-sale option, and that's the baked-in delayed gratification. I bought Austin's new book, Don't Call It Art, during pre-sale because I'm a huge fan of his other work. Namely, Steal Like An Artist, Show Your Work, and Keep Going. So I wanted to support him. And, I really wanted to read his new stuff.

So I bought the book ahead of time, and then let myself forget about it, because I knew it had already been taken care of and that it would show up on my doorstep and delight my future self.

It was already worth the wait, and I haven’t read it yet.

But I’m psyched to.