Pre-orders as a “category”

We plan to let customer’s pre-order products that hasn’t been released yet. I would like to have them all displayed together in it’s own sort of category like “HOT PREORDERS”. I have been playing around with the different options under admin, but haven’t really found what I’m looking for. We would like to offer 20% discount for all preorders, so for each preorder product I set up as a sale from date x to the day before the release date. Is there a smart way to have all the pre-orders listed on the mainpage? They each have different releasedates so I can’t make a own category I think. :dontgetit

In addition to this, we would like to have the option of allowing customers to sign up for updates on products that haven’t been released yet, and not yet allowed to order. It can be product’s we know is coming but no releasedate has been set. For example if we where selling DVD’s, LORD OF THE RINGS on blu-ray, I will set it up as a product but I don’t wan’t to allow customers to pre-order it, as it might be years before it comes out, or it might not be release at all. It’s more of a way, to get customers to sign up to product info, so I can let them know the releasedate etc. when that info becomes available.