Decide who is publishing the book
Record your publishing contacts
Get the names and email addresses of the people who will actually handle your book at the publisher, and keep them current.
Why it matters
Nearly every question on this checklist ends with "ask your publisher", and that is useless if you do not know who to ask. Knowing the right person also keeps you from sending metadata questions to a publicist or review-copy questions to a sales rep, which slows everyone down.
Your part
- What you do
- Ask. Someone else normally owns it. Get an answer, then record it.
- Who normally owns it
- Publisher and Author. Publisher assigns the roles; author asks for and records the names
- When
- Nine to twelve months before publication, when the book is assigned to publicity and marketing, then update whenever staff change (Decide who is publishing the book: as soon as the contract is signed, or the decision to publish is made)
Your part changes with your publishing route.
How to do it
The full walkthrough
At a publisher of any size, your book passes through several hands: an editor who shepherds the manuscript, a publicist who pitches media and reviewers, a marketer who handles advertising and retail promotion, a sales contact who talks to accounts and wholesalers, and a rights contact who sells translation, audio, and other subsidiary rights. At a small press, two or three of these may be the same person. At a large house, they may be in different buildings.
Ask for a name against each role. At a publisher, the list is usually available nine to twelve months out, when the book is assigned to the marketing and publicity teams; publicists and marketers are often assigned by season, so the names may not exist before then. At a hybrid press the roles may be staff, contractors, or nobody, and "we handle that in house" is a request for a name, not an answer. If you are the publisher, the list is your contractors plus the platform help channels you would use for a listing problem.
Store the list in your Book Identity Sheet and update it when anyone leaves or is reassigned.
Common mistakes
- Sending every question to the editor because that is the only name you have.
- Not asking again after the book moves from editorial to production, when new people appear.
- Assuming the person who answered a question in month three is still there in month nine.
- Skipping the rights contact because you do not expect foreign sales. Ask anyway; it costs nothing.
What done looks like
- A table with role, name, email, and what to contact them about, for every role above.
- A note of who the backup is when someone is out, or who to ask if a role is unfilled.
- The date you last confirmed the list.
- Your agent's contact details on the same table, if you have one.
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