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How O’Reilly sells and markets your book

Sales

We actively represent (sell) our books to all major book outlets as well as independent bookstores, ebook retailers, specialty retailers, wholesalers, and corporations. We reach outlets in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Australia, and Asia and have selling partners in South America. We also have subsidiaries in Japan and China as well as an active rights department that works with licensees all around the world to enable your book to be published in many other languages. So your book can reach a wider audience.

Early release

Launching your book as a “raw and unedited” early release title through our learning platform allows the millions of O’Reilly members to review and comment on early iterations of your chapters. An early release can generate buzz and demand for your book, and you’ll earn royalties on early release views and sales.

Marketing kickoff

During the final stages of production, you’ll have a marketing kickoff meeting with our growth marketing manager to review the marketing plan for your book, ask any questions you have about the sales and marketing, and get guidance on what you can do to promote your book.

oreilly.com

Your book will have a dedicated landing page on oreilly.com that includes a description of the book, the table of contents, and links to purchase on Amazon or through an O’Reilly vendor. O’Reilly product landing pages rank second only to Amazon in Google searches for books.

New book announcements

When your book is released, we’ll send out an announcement through one of O’Reilly’s newsletters. Our hundreds of thousands of opt-in email subscribers are professionals in all of our topic areas, so you can be sure we’re telling the right audience about your book.

We’ll also announce the release of your book on Twitter. We’ll tweet about the book and tag you several times over two or three weeks. Share these tweets in your network to amplify the announcement.

Community partner program

We announce all new books in our monthly newsletter to more than 1,000 user groups and meetups. Occasionally we receive requests for authors to speak at virtual events and will notify you when those opportunities arise. If you know of meetups or user groups that are interested in participating in our community partner program, please let us know by emailing

Amazon (US site only)

Let’s get to know the 300 lb. gorilla in the room: Amazon. It’s by far the largest retail channel for O’Reilly books—including yours.

Your title is automatically featured in several core Amazon promotional programs. This includes Amazon’s Automation and Personalization (A&P) campaigns, along with any appropriate quarterly topics or seasonal themes chosen by Amazon. Your title is also included in customized O’Reilly merchandising (premium website and email programs) covering various seasonal and topical themes.

Amazon’s automation and personalization technology has become such a seamless part of shopping at Amazon that you may not always be aware that the content you’re seeing is A&P. Essentially, A&P circulates relevant titles to customers both onsite and through emails based on their past shopping patterns and purchases. Amazon claims the constant impressions created by this are significant conversion and revenue generators. A&P placements can be found on Amazon.com’s home page, the Books home page, the Kindle Store home page, Books and Kindle category pages, and title detail pages.

In addition, O’Reilly pays a premium for extra service options that provide us further merch and marketing leverage. This includes extra onsite and email traffic-driving campaigns, keyword advertising placements among customer search results, and additional A+ descriptive content on detail pages to help convert browsing customers.

We encourage you to join Amazon’s Author Central—it offers many additional marketing features directly to authors, including the ability to post editorial reviews. Amazon frequently updates the marketing options available to publishers, and we continuously adapt to the programs and features that are most likely to increase sales.

Amazon frequently asked questions

Q: How often are the sales rankings at Amazon updated?

A: Each title’s sales ranking is updated hourly.

Q: How do the Amazon ranks compare to the sales of my book?

A: They don’t, exactly. The sales rank is tied to “orders” Amazon receives, not actual sales. An order can be one unit of a particular title or 20 units of the same title in that one order. The rank gives us some insight to what the trends might be or how popular your book may be or become. The lower the sales rank number, the better the sales rank for that hour.

Q: Why is there no Amazon sales rank for my title?

A: A book doesn’t receive a sales rank until it’s been ordered by a customer (or preordered, in the event of a Not Yet Printed title).

Q: How do Amazon in-stock messages work?

A: Amazon’s item availability messaging is algorithmically assigned based on Amazon’s own inventory position, open orders sourcing confirmations, and its own warehouse receiving process. In many cases, Amazon determines its own transportation logistics and timing as well. As a result, this may not be reflective of the publisher’s available inventory position. Additionally, Amazon direct (versus third-party marketplace) sellers only consider an item in-stock when they have more inventory available in their own warehouses than ongoing customer orders. This means that once Amazon has run out of stock for any reason, it will display one of several alternate messages noted in the link below.

It’s important to understand that Amazon’s standard operating procedure is to display a slightly longer time frame than is actually necessary in hope of underpromising and overdelivering rather than vice versa. Messages may initially look extreme compared to what actually happens (assuming we have more stock available at IPS). Typically, Amazon orders every other week, with smaller fill-in orders during off weeks. Since Amazon orders based on its own proprietary forecasts, O’Reilly has limited input on Amazon’s ordering volume and cycles. In large part, Amazon’s forecasting keeps items in-stock more often than not based on monitoring title traffic, order velocity, and seasonal factors. However, a sudden surge in customer demand or a temporary break in the publisher supply chain can cause Amazon to temporarily run out of its own supplies. In these cases, you may see a variety of Amazon availability messages.

Q: How long does it take between the release/pub date of a book and its being shown as “available” on Amazon?

A: The pub date displayed on Amazon under “Product Details” is an estimate of when retailers will have inventory available for sale, and takes into account shipment prep, transportation, retail receipt, and processing. This is generally approximately three weeks after physical copies have arrived at O’Reilly warehouses for the first time.

Q: How do I go about getting a not-so-favorable reader review removed off Amazon?

A: Use the “Report abuse” link near the content and enter the reason you believe it violates Amazon’s Community Guidelines. If no “Report abuse” link is available, you can email specifying the location of the content and the reason you believe it violates these guidelines.

Publishers don’t have access or input on Amazon review policies or enforcement. If you notice a particularly troubling review, email your editor with the specifics and a screenshot if necessary. Reviews will not be considered for removal unless they clearly violate Amazon policies.

Q: How do I get incorrect information fixed on my Amazon detail page?

A: Email your editor with the specifics and a screenshot if necessary. Your editor will make any necessary metadata changes and follow up with our Amazon rep. Depending on the change, the updated information should appear within seven to ten days.

Q: How can I help increase sales and exposure for my title at Amazon?

A: One way is to join Amazon Author Central. This gives you the opportunity to share the most up-to-date information about yourself and your work with your readers. You can view and edit your bibliography, add a photo and biography to your personal profile, add editorial reviews, upload missing book cover images, and use a blog to connect with readers.

What you can do to promote your book

Activate your network with grassroots marketing

Promote your book tirelessly! Part of building your audience is having a steady flow of content and communication. Social media, websites, newsletters, and blogs are all great ways to garner interest and stay in touch. Mention your book and add the link to it:

  • During speaking events
  • In newsletters and blogs
  • In your bio when writing columns or articles for newsletters, print, or online publications
  • In your email signature
  • In a pinned tweet on your Twitter profile
  • In your LinkedIn profile

Keep in mind that Amazon is usually the easiest way for your readers to purchase your book, but there are active resellers in many parts of the world. Contact us if you’d like a recommendation for a reseller in a particular country.

Prerelease promotion

Throughout the editorial and production process, you’ll have well-timed opportunities to promote your book. Remind your network about your book by announcing that you’re writing it, announcing the early release of the title, providing updates and progress, and sharing when you’re finally sending your final edited version to print.

In general, early release versions are available exclusively through O’Reilly’s online learning platform. To help generate awareness about your early release, we’ll provide a personalized link for a 30-day free membership to O’Reilly. The link can be shared with friends and colleagues as well as your wider network, including social media. Please contact to request your personalized link.

Social media

O’Reilly is currently active on LinkedIn and Twitter. Be sure to follow us on both platforms for announcements about your book and other O’Reilly authors. Whether you use social media regularly or not, it’s a good way to spread the word about your new release. Here are some tips for posting about your book:

  • Consider pinning the tweet announcing the release of your book at the top of your profile, like author James Urquhart, or in your header, like author Andrew Stellman.
  • Let followers know where to purchase your book from your favorite book sellers by sharing links, like author Antje Barth.
  • Share how relevant your knowledge is and how your readers have used it to work for them, like author Emmanuel Ameisen.
  • Retweet and share praise from people who have read your book. Author Cynthia Savard has a brilliant example.
  • Follow other O’Reilly authors! As you can see from the examples, they have a lot of great ideas.
  • Be authentic. You’ve worked hard and you should be proud of your accomplishment. Let people celebrate with you. Author Irakli Nadareishvili received an outpouring of congratulations with a simple post.
  • Use hashtags judiciously. But stick to two hashtags at most and only use hashtags relevant to your book (like #MachineLearning or #Java).
  • Finally, always tag @OReillyMedia on Twitter and LinkedIn. We’ll like your post and share as often as possible.

Dedicated book website

Help build your audience with a dedicated site for your book(s). Elements to include are links to purchase your book, a schedule of your upcoming events (virtual conferences, podcast recordings, online meetups, etc.), testimonials, blog entries on your area of expertise, and, of course, a place for your audience to sign up for updates, announcements, and a newsletter if you have one.

Here are a few examples from O’Reilly authors:

Practical Natural Language Processing
Fundamentals of Software Architecture
Head First Design Patterns

Blogging

Maintaining a blog requires sticking to a regular schedule to keep your audience coming back, but it doesn’t have to be a heavy lift. A thoughtful post once or twice a month with relevant content is plenty. Ideas for posts include updates about the technology in your book, case studies, advice you can give in your area of expertise, or an interview with someone in your field. Your blog can live on your website or a hosted platform like WordPress, Medium, or Blogger.

Check out these blogs by authors:

Ken Kousen
Martin Kleppmann
Camille Fournier

Newsletters

What’s the difference between a newsletter and a blog? Mostly where people read it, on your site or in their inbox. Newsletters can include snippets of your blog, announcements about upcoming events, giveaways, or promotional excerpts of your book, just to name a few. One of the powerful features of newsletters is the ability to collect data on how your audience is responding to the content you put out. Platforms such as Substack and Mailchimp can help with templates, reporting, and analytics.

You can use any or all of these tools to connect with your audience. If you have a business or service in the same topic area of your book, you may already have some of these channels in place (and if not, this could be a great way to promote your business). Take some time to consider the right solution for you.

The inclusion of businesses mentioned in this article is not an endorsement of services. There are plenty of options, so be sure to do the research and find what works best for you.

Speaking events

Speaking at conferences and meetups and on podcasts and webcasts is a great way to promote your book. If you’re using a slide presentation, include an image of the book and the links to it on your website, O’Reilly, Amazon, or your favorite book store.

O’Reilly is also happy to support you at these events with a book giveaway. Please contact our team for details.

Amazon Author Central

Author Central is a free service provided by Amazon that allows authors to reach more readers, promote books, and help build a better Amazon bookstore in the process. At Author Central, you have the opportunity to share praise quotes and editorial reviews, view and edit your bibliography, add a photo and biography to a personal profile, and use a blog to connect with readers. Sign up at authorcentral.amazon.com. For details on how to add editorial reviews for your book, see the Amazon help section (requires Author Central login).

Bulk purchases of your book

O’Reilly offers bulk discounts on books for quantities of five or more. If your company, professional organization, or university is interested in purchasing copies of your book in bulk, please contact with the number of copies requested and the country where they’ll be shipped.

Author discounts and other benefits

We’re pleased to offer the following benefits to our authors:

Complimentary membership to O’Reilly’s learning platform

All O’Reilly authors get a complimentary membership to O’Reilly. You’ll have access to more than 60,000 titles covering a variety of technology topics, live online conferences and training courses, interactive ebooks, over 30,000 hours of video, interactive scenarios and sandboxes in live dev environments, certification prep materials from the official vendors, instant answers from our NLP engine, audiobooks, and more.

To activate your account, please email your development editor.

Complimentary and discounted O’Reilly titles

Authors will typically receive five free print copies of their book and can purchase additional copies at a 50% discount. Please contact our if you’d like to purchase additional copies of your book.