Map every edition and release date
Record the official publication date for each format
Know the exact publication date of every format, because most review, award, and retail deadlines are calculated from it.
Why it matters
A wrong or shifting publication date quietly breaks everything downstream: a review submission arrives too late, an award entry lands in the wrong year, a preorder campaign points at a date that is no longer true. Knowing the date, and knowing when it changes, is the difference between a plan and a guess.
Your part
- What you do
- Verify. Someone else may do it. Inspect the result yourself.
- Who normally owns it
- Publisher and Author. Publisher sets the date; author records it and tracks changes
- When
- As soon as each format's date is set, and again whenever a date changes (Map every edition and release date: twelve to six months before publication, and again whenever a format is added)
Your part changes with your publishing route.
How to do it
The full walkthrough
The publication date (sometimes called the pub date or on-sale date) is the day the book is officially available. Each format can have its own. It is the anchor for nearly every deadline in publishing: trade reviewers want copies months before it, awards define eligibility by it, retailers use it to schedule preorders, and libraries use it to plan purchasing.
Get the date per format, in writing, and find out whether it is firm. A publisher sets it, often a year or more out, and it can move, so ask to be told if it changes, and note the difference between the publication date and the street date or on-sale date if both terms are in use. Check the date that was actually entered in the metadata feed, not just the date in your conversation. If you set the date yourself, choose it far enough out to allow review submissions if you want them, and enter the same date on every platform.
Record each format's date in the Book Identity Sheet and use the earliest one as the anchor for your deadline calendar.
Common mistakes
- Recording the hardcover date and assuming the ebook and audiobook share it.
- Building the deadline calendar on a provisional date and not rebuilding it when the date moves.
- Confusing the printer delivery date or warehouse date with the publication date.
- Entering different dates on different self-publishing platforms.
What done looks like
- A publication date for every planned format, marked firm or provisional.
- The date written the same way in your records, the publisher's metadata, and retail listings.
- A note of the difference between publication date and on-sale or street date, if the publisher distinguishes them.
- An agreement with the publisher about how you will be told if the date moves.
Ask your publisher
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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