Preprints boost the visibility and citation impact of your work

Preprints, unlike most research publications, are free and available to anyone with an internet connection. Unsurprisingly, unfettered access to research outputs has been shown to increase citation rates of papers \cite{Gargouri_2010}.  Preprints have also been shown to boost citation rates of formal publications.  
In astrophysics, citation rates of papers with preprint counterparts at ar\(\chi\)iv were cited nearly 2X more than non-preprinted publications \cite{Metcalfe_2006}. A similar finding was observed in the condensed matter section at ar\(\chi\)iv \cite{Moed_2006}.  Not only was accessibility important in the citation increase but so too was the visibility of papers -- accordingly, preprints appearing at the top of ar\(\chi\)iv email lists have higher citation rates than those appearing towards the bottom \cite{Hague_2009,Dietrich_2008}. Since Astrophysics articles announced in position one on the email list received a median number of citations 83% higher than those lower on the list \cite{Hague_2009}, the date an article is shared (i.e. preprinted or not) and the manner in which it is disseminated (where it appears on the  ar\(\chi\)iv list) appear to be important predictors of citation rate. 
At Authorea, we tentatively identified a similar trend:

Articles preprinted on Authorea receive 269% more citations than the average citation rate of all publications in a similar time period 

This finding, shown in Fig. \ref{608011}, should be cautioned as our sample of 69 preprints is quite small and not perfectly controlled across disciplines or author number. Indeed, this boost may be a result both of visibility and access as reported previously \cite{Hague_2009,Dietrich_2008} but also a result of a higher average number of authors per paper, a factor that has also previously been shown to increase citation rate of papers \cite{Figg_2006,Smart_1986}.
Authorea preprints have roughly 2 more authors per paper than the average \cite{Aboukhalil_2014}, likely due to the fact that Authorea is not only a preprint server but a collaborative editor as well.