How OCEAN can make waves — with you.
Why preorders matter — and how you can help this indie novel and its literary champions break through.
’Strange, wonderful and compelling. It shows what a good storyteller can do when she really lets rip’ — Louis de Bernieres.
Dear Reader
In a little under three weeks from now, Ocean will be published in hardback. Already, it’s beginning to make itself heard above the noise.
It’s easy to imagine that books take off because “the public” buys them — some distant, impersonal crowd. But that’s not how it works. It’s you. It’s the people who read, who engage, who show up, who carry a book outward into the world.
Why do preorders matter? (and how you can help make Ocean a bestseller)
If you love books — and you’re here, so I know you do — you’ve probably heard authors say: Preorders make a huge difference. But why?
Preorders don’t just trickle in and vanish. They build up behind the scenes, all counting toward launch-week sales — the critical number that determines how a book charts, how shops stock it, and how the media pays attention.
A strong preorder run can change a book’s entire trajectory.
✅ In the big leagues:
Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments sold over 125,000 copies on its first day — the best day-one sales for any Penguin Random House title in 2019 — thanks largely to a massive preorder campaign. Of course, Atwood had decades of success behind her, but even then, the publisher needed those early preorders to generate that kind of impact. (And yes, she generously gave a quote for my very first novel, Larchfield, — a connection I’ll always treasure.)
🔗 Read about The Testaments’ record-breaking launch
✅ In the indie world, where I proudly stand:
Preorders are everything. A few hundred to a thousand early copies signal to bookstores, media, and readers that this is a book to watch. Preorders can drive extra print runs, expanded distribution, foreign rights deals, and critical attention. Indie books live or die on early reader support.
🔗 Read about Why preorders matter for indie authors
But, crucially, the only preorders that count toward these numbers are from Amazon or bookstores like Waterstones or your local independent bookshop (preordering through your local bookshop is fantastic — it helps them and Ocean!) .
Some of you have already preordered via my publisher, which is amazing to start with — those direct sales are the most financially helpful for the business. But from now on, I’m asking for any further preorders to go through Amazon or a bookshop so they are counted towards the preorder total. Every single one mounts up (and there’s a hefty discount on Amazon too).
Here’s the truth: over the last year, I’ve built a community here — growing Monday Night Reads from zero by serialising Ocean, by sharing my writing, and by opening conversations on big cultural issues (like last week’s viral The End of Nuance post).
The reactions I’m receiving — privately, publicly, online — are overwhelmingly positive. I’m not pushing a book people don’t like. Readers love this novel — and I believe you will too.
And here’s the beautiful part: it’s already happening. On X this week, Gillian Philip made a post about Ocean that sparked enthusiastic replies: people saying they were ordering the book on the strength of that recommendation.
That’s the power of readers telling readers. That’s what makes a book travel.
Literary heroes have also stepped in with quotes to help get Ocean noticed (more on that below — Louis de Bernières visited my boat, for one!). But on its own, that’s not enough. Only you, preordering the book, is enough.
If even a fraction of this community preordered Ocean today, we’d already be on our way to bestseller lists.
So here’s the ask, from one writer to the readers who’ve walked this road with me: if you’ve been enjoying these posts, if you believe in this journey, if you want to see this indie novel break through — now is the moment. It matters more than you know.
Thank you, from the bottom of my boat-shaped heart.
Endorsements, Visits, and the Power of Signs
This sense of community has been more than just abstract support — it’s been arriving, quite literally, at my door. Or rather, my deck.
In the past few weeks, three remarkable authors have stepped forward in person: Louis de Bernières, Graham Linehan, and Frank Sayi. They haven’t just offered their names; they’ve come aboard, held up campaign signs, and lent their faces and voices to help bring Ocean to your notice.
Louis and I first worked together 25 years ago on a joyful, now almost dreamlike literary project. Seeing him here again, holding Ocean on my deck, felt like time folding in on itself. Graham, fresh back from America, smiled for an entire photo shoot on the dock, lending his tremendous presence to the campaign. Frank’s image — which you’re getting a sneak preview of here — holds extra emotional power for me: the words on his sign are two of my favourite lines in the entire novel. I cried when I wrote them. They touch on love, loss, and memory, themes that resonate deeply with Frank, whose upcoming memoir No Safer Kinder Hatred tells of his childhood during the Zimbabwean independence struggles, and the people he loved and lost.
Even my daughter, herself a gifted young writer, has joined in, part of this human chain of support.
All of them know, as I do, how hard it is to be heard above the noise. And that’s why this campaign matters.
This is the power of literary community. This is what carries a book outward — from writer to reader to reader again. This is what amplifies one voice into something larger.
Rippling Outward
This weekend, I had the extraordinary experience of seeing my sailing research trip — the real voyage that shaped the novel — featured in a magnificent spread in The Observer.
📍Read it here.
The e-book is already out in the world. And I already have a five-star rating — from a stranger, somewhere out there, who took the plunge. Whoever you are: thank you.
Even the kayak tied up at the back is doing its part: a coot family has nested there, producing fluffballs at alarming speed. This morning, we are up to four — see video below! A kind of literary fertility is everywhere.
When I first named the book, Ocean stood for the unknown — for the deep, dark space my heroine Helen would have to cross to save her sanity, and family. I didn’t know, when I began, that I would cross it too: out into sailing, risk, and self-transformation. It became a novel about grief, marriage, survival, water — and what we do with the things we fear most.
Thank you for reading (and preording!), and being here.
Till next time
Polly xx
Footage from this morning! A fourth chick arrived overnight and Sheba received breakfast from her wonderful partner Gavin (named by Louis de Bernieres).