I'm going to give you guys a couple numbers. You ready?

Two thirds of published books sell fewer than 1000 copies in their first year of release. (14% sell fewer than a dozen.)

70% of books never earn out their advance, which means an author never sees a dime from royalties of actual book sales when the book comes out.

Publishing is HARD y'all ;__; Just under 350,000 books are published in the U.S. each year, so there's a lot of competition for your attention and a lot of that pressure (and the responsibility for the fallout) gets put on authors. Now more than ever before. Luckily, not so here at Bindery! I won't get into all that again for the millionth time here, but my position in being able to take some of that weight off an author so that they can do what they really want to do and just write their books is exactly why I want to be here and exactly what I want to do with this imprint.

And to keep doing that, I need your help :) We are only 145 days from the release of The Archaeology of Falling Worlds by Megan Chee and while 2/3 of books will not sell 1000 copies in their first 12 months, I bet we could get 1000 copies before it even hits shelves. That's right y'all, it's time to start the big pre-order push!!!

I've talked about it before and I'll talk about it again, pre-orders are stupidly important in publishing. Pre-order numbers can help make or break a book's success before it even comes out (which is honestly terrifying) so I'm here asking you all to consider pre-ordering Archaeology, because pre-orders...

• can get books on bestseller lists, because alllll those pre-orders are counted on release day

• encourage bookstores to stock the book when it comes out because it shows that there's interest and copies in their store are likely to sell

• can get the attention of book boxes and special edition companies

• can benefit an author's future! Great pre-order numbers are one of a number of things an author can bring to the negotiating table when selling their future projects, so your pre-orders now can ensure your favorite authors get to keep doing what they're best at and keep putting out books you love.

Dollar for dollar, pre-orders are hands down the best way to support your favorite authors.

So that brings us here, to the Archaeology pre-order push. I want to set Megan up for success as much as we possibly can, and I really think we can do this. If everyone who got an email blast for this newsletter pre-ordered Archaeology right now, we'd hit that goal immediately and be golden and coasting for the next five months (oh my god it's only five months away).

You will get nice things for this too but we haven't finalized our pre-order incentives yet so for now all I will say on that is...keep track of your receipt/confirmation email ;)

If you are interested in this cyberpunk sci-fi adventure, if you've read any of Megan's other phenomenal short fiction work and want to see what she can do in a full novel, and if you want to support our publishing journey here with Skies Press, please pre-order Archaeology.

I'll pop some links below, and I 100% recommend doing it right now while you're thinking about it and not being like me, who opens a tab to remember to go back to it and simply ends up with 500 tabs that I've never remembered to go back to (I'm not kidding, ask me how I know the iphone safari browser tops out at 500 open tabs).

We're not at zero pre-orders right now (I know many of you already have!) but for the purposes of this post and the fact that I don't have current numbers at the moment, let's start here.

0/1000 pre-orders, 145 days to go

I'll check back in on this number the next time I get an updated count, at the end of October.

Here are some places you can pre-order:

Bookshop.org - I'm a big fan of bookshop! They share revenue with independent bookstores and you can specify your favorite indie store for your purchase to support. (full disclosure I do get affiliate revenue from this link so I get something like $1.50 if you order it here)

Barnes & Noble - If you have a B&N membership for the slight discount and that sweet sweet free shipping

Books a Million - I'm not gonna lie, I've never seen a Books a Million in my life so I have no idea what to say about it other than I am aware of its existence. I just looked it up and the closest one to me is 443 miles away because apparently there is one random BAM in Utah.

Indigo - O Canada....

Kobo or Kindle - ebook pre-orders are great because you don't have to think about anything, it'll just pop up on your e-reader or your phone at midnight as soon as release day hits

Amazon - I understand that sometimes Amazon is the best option for getting things delivered in some areas, especially books in areas that don't have bookstores

A NOTE FOR THOSE NOT IN NORTH AMERICA!

Unlike with Bargain, Archaeology has another publisher outside of North America! Skies Press got print, digital, and audio rights just here in NA, while Daphne Press will be publishing the book in the UK/AUS. If you are in those territories you can of course still order the Skies Press edition the same way you might have for Bargain or you would any other American book, but it will also be published dinstinctly in your region by Daphne Press. I have basically no information on that however and no access to things like pre-order numbers for anything ordered with them. Keep an eye on Megan's socials for any announcements on that side of things. I don't believe it's available to order from them yet, but it should be soon.

And that is where I will leave you this evening. If you've pre-ordered the book, THANK YOU! If you're going to pre-order it in the future, THANK YOU! And don't worry, I won't let you forget ;) I'm afraid I might be a bit annoying about this, but I really do think we can hit 1,000 pre-orders in the next 145 days. This is a great community of people who share the value of good stories and an artist's ability to keep telling them. That's what we can do for Megan Chee here.

More soon,
Emma <3