I haven’t done a preorder since last year, but then I was thinking that there could be some situations where having a book on preorder might be a good idea.
And this is why:
1. Some people don’t want to be on my email list for new releases. With all the emails flooding someone’s inbox, one more can be a pain to sort through. Also, it’d be easy to miss or end up in spam.
2. Maybe someone doesn’t want to be notified when a historical western comes out because they only want to read contemporaries? I write three sub-genres in romance, and not everyone wants to read all of them.
3. Some people might change email address and won’t receive the new release email.
4. Some people might prefer to get the book as soon as it’s out without waiting for me to find the book is available and go through the process of notifying everyone. I try to be quick when I publish books, but sometimes I don’t get to it for a couple days (thanks to kids or something else popping up).
Okay, so given all these very good reasons, I thought I’d start offering some books as a preorder on iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Smashwords and see how things go. I can’t offer it on Amazon or anywhere else at this point in time.
I want to make things as convenient and easy for you as I can, and I’m hoping this will be something that is useful. At least, it’s worth a try to see how things go. I’ll be posting links for the preorders soon.
Ruth Ann Nordin's Author Blog 
Mark Coker talked about this at RNC. I’m considering it in the future.
It’s probably a good thing to try out and see if it works. At the very least, it doesn’t hurt.
He told us in class there’s a way to do pre-orders even if the book isn’t ready. That’s kind of scary because it puts a person on a definite deadline to finish. He said some didn’t even have covers, but I would want to at least be able to show a cover.
I agree with you. I at least want a cover. It helps to have a visual. I think the cover can tell something about the book that the description alone can’t.