Release your book trailer before launch, then keep using it afterwards. The trailer works hardest during the weeks when readers can pre-order your book, so share it as soon as your pre-order page is live. After launch day the same video keeps selling; only its call to action changes.
When Should You Release Your Book Trailer?
The best moment to release your book trailer is when readers can act on it. For most self-published authors that means the day your pre-order page goes live, or as close to it as you can manage. A trailer shared months before anyone can order builds a little awareness, but it wastes the video’s strongest feature: it ends with something to click.
That principle gives you a simple test for any proposed release date. Ask what a viewer who likes the trailer can do in the next thirty seconds. If the honest answer is “follow you and wait”, the trailer is early. If it is “pre-order”, or “join the mailing list to be told when it is out”, the timing is working.
The mailing-list version of that answer is the one authors underuse. If your pre-order page is not open yet but you have somewhere for interested readers to go, the trailer still has a job to do; it is simply feeding a pre-launch email list rather than a retailer. That is a weaker conversion than a pre-order, but it is a great deal stronger than a view with nowhere to go.
How Far Ahead Can You Open Pre-Orders on Each Platform?
Each platform sets its own pre-order window and its own file deadline, and those two dates are what actually govern when your trailer can start working. The table summarises the published positions; the notes below it cover the traps.
| Platform | How far ahead you can open pre-orders | File deadline |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon KDP (ebook) | Up to one year; maximum of 10 pre-order titles at a time | Final manuscript and pre-order submitted more than 72 hours before release |
| Amazon KDP (print) | No pre-orders; Schedule a Release hides the page for up to 90 days | File locks five days before the release date |
| Apple Books | Up to 12 months | Covers, files and a sample needed to set it up |
| IngramSpark | Publication and on-sale dates up to 365 days ahead | Pre-ordered copies start printing 30 business days before the on-sale date |
| Draft2Digital | Any future release date | At least 10 business days recommended, not required |
Amazon KDP lets readers pre-order a Kindle ebook as early as one year before release, and requires the final manuscript and the pre-order submission more than 72 hours in advance. Two limits are easy to miss: you can only have ten pre-order titles running at once, and if a pre-order is cancelled or missed, Amazon blocks you from setting up any pre-order for a year. That penalty is the reason to fix your trailer date to the pre-order opening rather than to a release date you may still want to move.
IngramSpark lets you set publication and on-sale dates up to 365 days ahead, and enabling distribution with future dates creates pre-order pages at retailers. It also starts printing and shipping accumulated pre-orders 30 business days before the on-sale date, so the useful promotional window closes about six weeks out rather than on the day itself.
Draft2Digital lets you set a release date for any date in the future. Its own guidance recommends at least 10 business days ahead so that the retailers it distributes to have time to process the book; that is a recommendation rather than a hard cut-off, but the retailers downstream have their own deadlines, so treating it as one costs nothing.
Apple Books allows a pre-order up to 12 months before publication, and asks for the cover, the files and a sample when you set it up. Apple’s own launch advice is worth reading alongside your trailer plan, because it treats linking marketing directly to the pre-order page as the point of the exercise.
What If You Are Publishing Print Only?
KDP does not offer pre-orders for paperbacks or hardcovers. Its Schedule a Release option instead lets you pick a release date up to 90 days ahead while keeping the book’s detail page hidden until that day, at which point it goes live at 12:00 AM GMT. Only new KDP print books are eligible, and the file locks five days before release, so no manuscript or cover changes are possible in that final week.
The consequence for a trailer is straightforward: on a KDP-only print launch there is no early page for the video to point at. In that case the trailer’s job changes from converting to gathering. Sharing it two to four weeks before launch, alongside your advance review copies and your email list, gives you a countdown asset and somewhere to collect interested readers, rather than an early link that goes nowhere.
Authors publishing print through IngramSpark as well as KDP get the best of both, because the IngramSpark route does create pre-order pages at retailers. If print is your main format and pre-orders matter to your plan, that difference between the two printers is worth settling before you fix the trailer date.
What Changes After Launch Day?
Launch day does not retire your trailer; it changes the trailer’s job. Before publication the call to action points at a pre-order page or an email sign-up. From release day it should say the book is out and point at the buy page instead.
Many authors run this as a two-stage release. A short teaser of five to fifteen seconds goes out first on social feeds, where short clips travel furthest. The full trailer follows when pre-orders open or on launch day, and usually runs 30 to 90 seconds. We cover how long a book trailer should be in a separate guide.
One practical detail catches authors out: a release date baked into the trailer’s closing screen makes the video age overnight. Keeping the closing text on its own layer means “Pre-order now” can become “Available now” without re-editing the video. If you commission a trailer, ask for both versions of the closing screen up front; asking afterwards usually means paying for a second edit.
After the first month the trailer stops being a campaign piece and becomes a permanent asset. It can live on your website, in your email footer and in pinned social posts. It also earns a fresh push whenever something changes: a paperback or audiobook edition, a new book in the series, an award, or a seasonal promotion. Our guide to where to share a book trailer covers the full list of placements.
Is There a Risk in Releasing the Trailer Too Early?
There is, and it is worth weighing rather than dismissing, because the case for holding a trailer back is not silly.
The argument against an early release is that a trailer is a single shot of novelty. Spend it in month one of a six-month run-up and you have nothing new to show in the weeks that matter, when reviewers, newsletter swaps and launch-day posts all want fresh material. Traditional publishers time trailers close to publication for exactly this reason.
The argument for releasing as soon as pre-orders open is that a video with a live link converts, and a video without one only informs. On a self-published launch, where the pre-order window is usually weeks rather than a year, the two dates are close enough that the conflict mostly disappears.
The two-stage approach resolves it where the gap is genuinely long. Release the teaser when pre-orders open and hold the full trailer for launch week, and you get a link-carrying asset early and a fresh one late. That only works if the teaser was cut as its own piece rather than trimmed in a hurry the night before.
How Early Should You Commission the Trailer?
Work backwards from the date you want the trailer live, not from your publication date. Template-based tools can produce a simple trailer in a day or two. A professionally edited trailer commonly takes one to six weeks depending on the style, the length, and how many revision rounds are involved.
Two things need to exist before trailer work can start: the final cover art and the book’s hook, which is the line the trailer script is built around. The cover normally closes the video, so a trailer commissioned before the cover is approved will stall part-way through. Working back from a launch date, that puts the cover roughly two months out, the trailer brief immediately after it, and the finished video in hand a week before pre-orders open, which leaves room for the closing-screen variant and for the teaser cut.
If you have not yet chosen who will make it, our book video trailer service shows samples and pricing, and you can get a quote before committing to a date.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it too late to make a book trailer after my book is published?
No. A trailer made after publication skips the pre-order stage but keeps every other use: your website, Goodreads, email footers and pinned social posts. New editions and new books in a series give it fresh launch moments later, and an existing back catalogue means the buy link works from the first view.
Can a book trailer help sell pre-orders?
It can support them. During the pre-order window the trailer is often the only new, shareable asset an author has, so pair every share with a direct pre-order link. The video creates the moment of interest; the link converts it. Amazon also states that pre-orders contribute toward sales rank and Kindle Store merchandising before the ebook is released, so the sales do work for you during the window rather than only on launch day.
Where should I post my book trailer on launch day?
Upload it to YouTube first so that you have a permanent link, then share that link through your social channels, your newsletter and your author profiles. Keep the video on one canonical URL rather than uploading separate copies to each platform, so that view counts and any links people share accumulate in one place.
Should the teaser and the full trailer be different videos?
Yes, cut them separately. A teaser is a five-to-fifteen-second excerpt built for social feeds, while the full trailer carries the complete pitch and the call to action. Cutting the teaser from the finished trailer keeps the two consistent, and gives you a second release moment without a second production.
Do I need a new trailer for the paperback or audiobook edition?
Usually not. A re-edit with an updated closing screen and call to action is enough, and it costs far less than a new production. Save a brand-new trailer for a brand-new book.
How long should the pre-order period be?
Long enough to promote, short enough to sustain. Platforms allow up to a year, but a window you cannot fill with activity is dead time, and one common assumption behind long windows does not hold on Amazon: KDP says pre-orders contribute to sales rank before release rather than banking up for launch day. Match the window to the marketing you have actually planned, and remember that KDP bars you from setting up any pre-order for a year if you cancel one.
