Of course you can do this in iTunes. Like every digital store, Apple does its best to separate you from your money. Happily, of course, but yes, there's a pre-order capability once they know about the release of a music CD or album (pick your name based on your generation!).

I've been a lifelong fan of musician and singer Kate Bush and a few weeks ago noticed that she had a new CD scheduled for late November, 2011. Perfect, I'm in!

To pre-order the new CD, 50 Words for Snow, I found it in the iTunes Store -- formerly the iTunes Music Store -- and saw that instead of a "Buy" button it was set up a bit differently:

Instead of "Buy" it says "Pre-Order". So I dutifully click...

Legally, Amazon can't charge for a product it doesn't have in inventory to deliver, so there's actually no financial transaction at this point, that's the gist of its warning message. But yeah, I want thew new CD so I'll click "Pre-order" and proceed...

That's the feature you're looking for! A click on "Yes" and the computer's set up to automatically download the new Kate Bush CD as soon as it becomes available in the store.

You're welcome. Now, when will I get it?

If you look closely, you'll see that the expected release date of 50 Words for Snow is November 22, 2011. You can imagine my delight when two days early I received the following in my email:

I didn't click on "Download your pre-order now", however, because I was curious about how iTunes would automatically download the content.

By the time I switched over to iTunes on my MacBook Pro, however, it was already starting to download the CD, track by track:

Sweet! A quick look in another view and it shows progress wheels for each of the tracks in the new CD:

And, finally, a chance to listen to another amazing album from Kate Bush:

In a nutshell, that's how pre-order works, and your computer should have the new NiN CD downloaded for your listening pleasure well before anyone else in your circle has the time to find it, purchase it and download it onto their own iPods. Enjoy!