Why do bookstore hold back new titles until Tuesday? It’s called the Tuesday release day. It’s an industry practice to get the new books they have published out on the shelves on the second day of the week. By the way movies, CD’s, and DVD’s movies are promoted on this schedule as well. To discover the basis for this curious day-of-the-week practice, we will have to rely upon the opinions of various people from the publishing trade.
Generally, books are set to arrive during a particular month, and
bookstores just put the books on the shelves when they arrive at
the store. Only the most popular books merit a street date that is
actually enforced. These books arrive ahead of the date in boxes
marked “Do not open before…” and they sit there until that date
arrives.” ~ The Millions.
“… releasing a new book on Tuesday allows for several full days
of book-related hype in the media to get people interested leading
into the weekend when most of the shopping happens. Allowing a
weekend to break up the media hype cycle too soon might let the
new book fall from people’s consciousness before they got a
chance to buy.” ~ The Millions.
“… it’s called a “one-day laydown”–and again, has to do with
how sales are reported and how bestseller lists track that. It’s
more expensive to do that. Your average book just trickles into
the bookstores at different times around the official publication
date.” ~ The Millions.
