Run the launch-week availability audit
Verify availability of every announced format
On publication day, confirm that each format you announced (hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook) can actually be bought at each major retailer, not just listed.
Why it matters
Readers who arrive on launch day and cannot buy the format they wanted rarely come back to check again. Every announcement, post, and interview sends people to a listing, and a listing that says unavailable wastes the attention. Finding the gap on day one, and knowing which format and which retailer, is what lets the distributor fix it quickly.
Your part
- What you do
- Verify. Someone else may do it. Inspect the result yourself.
- Who normally owns it
- Publisher and Distributor. Publisher and distributor control availability; author verifies and reports
- When
- Publication day, and again a week later for anything unresolved (Run the launch-week availability audit: publication day and the first week)
Your part changes with your publishing route.
How to do it
The full walkthrough
A format can be listed and still not be available: the page exists but the buy button says unavailable, or the ebook is live while the audiobook shows a date three weeks out, or the hardcover is in stock at one retailer and on backorder at another. Announced formats are the ones you told readers about, and on publication day each should be purchasable.
Check each format at each major retailer and, for print, at a wholesaler-fed site such as an independent bookstore's online catalog. Note the status: available, preorder, backordered, out of stock, not listed. Note the stated ship date if there is one.
Traditionally published authors send the results to the publisher, whose distribution team can see stock levels and feed status that the author cannot. Ask specifically about any format that is listed but not available, because the fix (a stock allocation, a feed correction, a platform delay) depends on the cause. Hybrid authors ask their publisher contact the same question. Self-published authors check each platform dashboard for the format's status and open a support case where a live format shows as unavailable.
Audiobooks are the format most often out of step, because they are frequently produced on a separate schedule and distributed through a separate channel. If the audiobook was announced for a later date, that is fine; check that the retailer shows the right date.
Common mistakes
- Seeing the listing and assuming the book is purchasable.
- Checking one retailer.
- Not distinguishing a format that is not yet released from one that has failed to go live.
- Assuming a print-on-demand title shows as in stock everywhere on day one; it can take days to propagate.
Identifiers for Verify availability of every announced format
Set a status on any record and it joins this step. All book identifiers.
| My status | Identifier | Why this matters | Yours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ingram The wholesale catalog most bookstores and libraries order from, plus IngramSpark, the self-publishing platform that feeds into it. | This decides whether a bookstore or library can order your book through the channel most of them use, and on what terms, so when a shop says it cannot order your book this is usually where the answer sits. Ingram's data also reaches many retailers and library vendors, so an error in the record can surface in several places. Traditionally and hybrid published authors normally ask whether the title is in Ingram wholesale, at what wholesale discount, and whether it is returnable, since those are the two terms a bookseller checks before ordering; if you publish the book yourself, you set the discount and the return policy in IngramSpark, and both have real money attached. Get the discount and return terms in writing, then check that the title record matches the other major listings. | Nothing to record |
What done looks like
- Each announced format checked at each major retailer on publication day, with status and ship date noted.
- Any format listed but not purchasable reported to the publisher or platform the same day, with links.
- Print availability checked through a wholesaler-fed independent bookstore site as well as the large retailers.
- Audiobook date confirmed against what was announced.
- Results logged alongside the launch-day audit.
Evidence. Done means someone says the work happened. Verified means you checked the confirmation, link, or public record yourself.
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