Decide who is publishing the book
Identify the publishing path and responsible parties
Choose the publishing path that actually describes the deal, then assign every major job to a named person or team. If nobody owns a step, assume it won't happen.
Why it matters
Most launch problems are not caused by anyone doing a bad job. They happen because two people each assumed the other was doing it, or because a task belonged to a role nobody had filled. Naming the path and the people up front turns "someone should" into "this person will".
Your part
- What you do
- Do it. You normally do this yourself.
- Who normally owns it
- Author. Author decides and records; publisher and agent confirm their parts
- When
- As soon as the publishing path is known, which usually means at contract signing or the day you decide to self-publish (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
Every book travels one of three broad routes: traditional publishing (a publisher pays you and carries the costs), hybrid publishing (you pay a publisher some or all of the costs in exchange for services), or self-publishing (you are the publisher). The route decides who owns each task on this checklist, so it is the first thing to write down.
What the route decides is the default owner of every other item. With a trade publisher, the publisher normally handles identifiers, metadata, production, trade review submissions, and distribution, and your job is to verify, supply material on time, and keep your own records; a literary agent may handle contract questions and rights. With a hybrid publisher the contract decides, and service lists range from everything a trade house would do to the cover files and good luck, so read it line by line and assign every checklist item to a named person. When you are the publisher of record, most items default to you, and anyone you hire (a publicist, a formatter, a distributor) belongs on the list too.
The output of this item is short: a written note of the path and a first-pass table of who owns what. Everything else on this site builds on it.
Common mistakes
- Assuming a hybrid contract includes marketing or trade review submissions when it lists only production.
- Treating "the publisher" as one person. Ask who, by name, handles metadata, publicity, and sales.
- Forgetting that a self-published author with a hired publicist still owns the identifiers and metadata.
- Never revisiting the list when staff change, which they often do between contract and launch.
A template for this
Publisher responsibility confirmationA short, routine note asking your publisher to confirm which publisher-handled items are done, and to send the identifier, link, date, or confirmation for your records.
When to use it: Use this when several checklist items belong to the publisher and you have no record that they happened. It works best a few months before publication, then again after launch for anything still open. Do not use this when you only have one question, or you already have the confirmation on file. Ask the single question directly instead.
What done looks like
- One sentence stating the publishing path (traditional, hybrid, or self-published) and the publisher or imprint name.
- A list of every person or company involved: publisher contacts, agent, publicist, distributor, designer, narrator, and you.
- Each checklist category assigned to a named owner, with "unknown" written honestly where you have not asked yet.
- A note of what the contract or service agreement says about each responsibility.
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