Run the launch-week availability audit
Run a launch-day identity audit
On publication day, check every public record of the book and the author in one sitting: title, name, cover, description, formats, price, and links, and log what is wrong.
Why it matters
Launch day is when the most people look and when a wrong description or a missing format costs the most. It is also the moment when the feed data is freshest and most likely to be in flux, so problems found now are the easiest to attribute and fix. A single documented audit is far more useful to a publisher than a stream of screenshots over a week.
Your part
- What you do
- Verify. Someone else may do it. Inspect the result yourself.
- Who normally owns it
- Author and Publisher. Author audits; publisher corrects feed data
- When
- Publication day (Run the launch-week availability audit: publication day and the first week)
How to do it
The full walkthrough
The launch-day audit is a systematic look at what the world sees on the day the book goes on sale. Open each major retailer listing, the publisher's page, Google Books, Goodreads, your own site, and a search for your name and the title. For each, check the title and subtitle, the author name form, the cover image, the description, the formats and their prices, the publication date, the author profile link, and whether the buy button works. Write down every discrepancy with a link.
Traditionally published authors should send the list to the publisher's metadata or publicity contact the same day, in one email, with the specifics. Most problems on launch day are feed timing (a retailer has not yet processed the final data) rather than errors, but the publisher needs to know which ones persist. Hybrid authors send the same list to their publisher contact. Self-published authors fix what they can in their platform dashboards and open support tickets for the rest.
Do it once, thoroughly, rather than repeatedly and anxiously. Retailer systems update on their own schedules, and a listing that is wrong at nine in the morning may be right by afternoon. Note the time of the audit and re-check the unresolved items in a week.
This is the first of the audits on this checklist; the 30-day, 90-day, and annual audits repeat the same checks.
Common mistakes
- Checking only Amazon.
- Sending a separate email for every error as it is found.
- Reporting a listing as wrong when the retailer simply has not processed the day's feed.
- Skipping the audit because the preorder page looked fine last month.
Identifiers for Run a launch-day identity audit
Set a status on any record and it joins this step. All book identifiers.
| My status | Identifier | Why this matters | Yours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Books Google's index of book records and previews, often the first thing a reader or librarian sees when they search your title. | Because Google's web search draws on it, a wrong record here is visible to readers and librarians and gets cited in other databases, and an old edition or an advance file left previewable is the version people will read. Corrections go to whoever holds the partner account for the title rather than to the search result: traditionally and hybrid published authors normally ask the publisher or its distributor, once they have established which of the two holds it. If you publish the book yourself, you may hold the account, in which case the fix is yours to make. Search every edition by ISBN, check the core facts, and make sure any preview shows the current file. | Add your Google Books link | |
| Amazon Author Central The free Amazon page where you claim your author name, attach every edition of your books, and write your biography. | Unclaimed, the author page a reader sees is whatever Amazon assembled, and any edition listed under a different spelling of your name sits apart from the rest of your work. Only you can fix that: a publisher cannot claim your author page for you, and the platform account a self-publisher publishes through is a separate login, so the job is identical on all three routes. Amazon's help says author pages are not removed once created, so use exactly the name that appears on your books rather than creating a second page you would rather not have. You're done when one author page carries the right name and every edition and format is attached to it. | Add your Amazon author page link | |
| Goodreads Author Program The free way to claim the Goodreads profile that is created automatically once a book under your name enters its database. | The profile exists whether or not you claim it, so leaving it alone means the picture, biography, and book list readers see are whatever the database assembled, and a book by a different writer with your name can end up attached to you. Reader reviews and ratings sit outside your control by design, and claiming the profile does not change that. All three routes do the same thing here; what differs is how the book record arrives in the first place, normally through the publisher's data for a traditionally published book, and through your platform or a volunteer Goodreads Librarian for a self-published one. You're done when the profile is claimed and every edition is grouped under the right work and author. | Add your Goodreads author page link |
What done looks like
- A checklist of every place the book appears, each opened and checked on publication day.
- Title, author name, cover, description, formats, prices, publication date, and profile links verified at each.
- Discrepancies logged with a link, what is wrong, and what it should say.
- One email to the publisher (or one round of platform fixes and support tickets) the same day.
- Unresolved items carried into the corrections follow-up item.
Ask your publisher
Copy this into an email. Replace the bracketed parts with your details.
Sources and last checked
- Official source
- No single official page for this step.
- Last checked
- Not checked against its source yet.
- How confident we are
- Verified