Celebrating our authors’ No. 1 New Release bestseller flags from Amazon

As we work with new authors, we always explain that their books should appear in Amazon’s listings for at least a month in a “pre-sale” period—a standard practice across the publishing industry—before the books’ national release dates.

Why?

It’s part of a larger and now well-established practice in publishing: We want to launch books with a sign of the enthusiastic endorsement of early readers who “click” to purchase books ahead of their official release dates. Amazon counts all of those “pre-sales” and, during the launch week, announces to the world those “categories” in which these “New Releases” have become bestsellers.

This spring, we’re celebrating two authors whose books debuted with these encouraging flags—which, across the publishing industry, forever make them “new release bestsellers” and can encourage other readers to check out these popular titles.

Here’s the latest parade of flags we’re celebrating:

Click on either image to jump to the book’s Amazon page. NOTE: These New Release flags don’t last forever on Amazon—the giant retailer awards them for a while, then moves on to honor other “new releases”—so you may or may not see the flags, depending on the day you’re reading this column and visiting their Amazon pages. At our publishing house, we save these images to remember that early burst of enthusiasm from readers nationwide.