Six Things – Taking Flight

The surprising significance of pre-orders

The publication of Taking Flight is just over two months away, and my wonderful publishers have produced this delightful animation to help generate some excitement. I actually went “ooh” when I saw it.

This book has occupied my mind for a while now, and creating it has been just about the most ambitious and exciting thing I’ve done – and I speak as someone who once dismantled, diagnosed and mended a faulty model locomotive without crying or swearing, so I know what I’m talking about.

The thought process unfolded in six phases:

1. Ooh how about a book about flight?

2. They like my idea for a book about flight!

3. oh god I’ve got to write a book about flight.

4. Whose stupid idea was it to write a book about flight?

5. aagghh (this was by far the longest phase)

6. I have written a book about flight!

Not unnaturally, having made this thing, I’m keen for people – as many of them as possible – to read it. And inevitably this will mean a fair deal of shouting about it, here and elsewhere. Part of that shouting will be this common refrain from any writer with an imminent book release: “Please pre-order”.

To which a reasonable response might be: “Why?”

Here are Six Things on the subject.

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Thing 1

‘Pre-orders’ are distinct from ‘orders’

The word, which does annoy some people, specifically means ‘to order something before it is published’. It’s not a pretty word, but it is useful, making it clear that if you pre-order something, you won’t get it tomorrow.

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Thing 2

Pre-orders are an indicator of future success

If a bookshop or other outlet receives a lot of pre-orders for a book, it’s a decent indication that they will continue to receive orders once the book has been published.

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Thing 3

Pre-orders make a book visible

Even one pre-order will bring a book to a bookshop’s attention, and they will be more likely to devote a slice of their often limited shelf space to stocking a copy or two. (This, by the way, is a bigger deal than you might at first imagine). A gaggle of pre-orders might nudge them into giving it table or even window space. We like this.

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Thing 4

Pre-orders feed the algorithm

It’s a tiresome fact of modern life, but the algorithm is hungry, and is geared to reward and regenerate success. Lots of pre-orders = greater likelihood that the algorithm will shove a book under the nose of interested parties.

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Thing 5

Pre-orders count towards the first week of sales figures

The higher up the sales charts (whether Amazon or elsewhere), the more attention the book gets from that pesky algorithm, and – again – the more likely people are to see it.

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Thing 6

All this works for libraries, too

You might not have the money to spend on a new hardback book. Or you might be unwilling to. This is completely understandable. If you want to help, you can ask your library to buy it in – thanks to the wonder of the Public Lending Right, a library loan benefits the author more than an Amazon sale.

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Those Six Things could easily be condensed, more or less, into One Thing: visibility.

So it would make me extremely happy – assuming you’re thinking of buying Taking Flight at all – if you could place your order now rather than later. The bonus for you is that (if you’re anything like me) you’ll forget you did it, so when the book turns up in a couple of months it’ll feel like a free gift.

You can pre-order (it doesn’t get any prettier with repetition, does it?) Taking Flight through your choice of retailer. It will ship when the book is published on May 4th:

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I’ll write more about the book, including the writing process (with deep insights into the “aagghh” phase), between now and publication day. But for now, here are a few of the extremely generous comments coming from some of its early readers:

“This book soars… A nature writer at the top of his game.” Steve Brusatte

“A wonderful journey… I didn’t want this flight to end.” Jon Dunn

“A work of clarity, levity and joy.” Caspar Henderson

“As magical and uplifting as the aerial dynamics of our tiniest insects and birds.” – Ann Pettifor