What we check, what we label, and what money can't change.

AuthorChecklist.com exists to explain the work around publishing a book accurately and in plain English. These are the rules we hold ourselves to.

What we rely on

• We prefer official program rules and primary sources. A submission deadline comes from the organization's own page, not from a roundup, a forum, or a vendor's newsletter.
• We record the date each time-sensitive fact was verified. Every review outlet, award, and resource record shows when we last checked it. When that date is old, the record says so.
• We separate facts from our guidance. "Library Journal asks for copies about six months before publication" is a fact with a source. "Ask your publisher in month nine whether the book is on the review list" is our practical advice, and we label it that way.

What we keep separate

• Editorial consideration is not a paid review. When an outlet decides on its own whether to cover a book, we call that editorial consideration. When payment guarantees a review, we say so, and we say that payment guarantees a review, not a positive one. Where one organization runs both kinds of track, the record explains the difference.
• Entry fees and costs are disclosed. If entering an award, ordering a review, or using a platform costs money, the record says how much, as of the date we checked.
• Listing is not endorsement. An award or service appears here because authors ask about it and it has an official page we can check. The descriptive labels explain what kind of program it is. We do not rank awards. Where a record carries a judgment about an award's usefulness, it says which points of the rubric below it rests on, and the call is still yours; the record gives you what you need to make it.

What we will not do

• We do not accept payment from an award, review service, publisher, platform, or vendor in exchange for a listing, a more favorable label, or softer wording.
• If we ever add sponsored placements, they will be labeled as sponsored, kept apart from the directories, and never change how a record is written.
• We publish review excerpts only when the author has permission, the outlet provides quotation terms, or the use is otherwise legally permitted. We link to the original review whenever possible. Anyone who believes an excerpt or page infringes their rights can write to Fosterly, LLC, PO Box 59204, Potomac, MD 20854, or use the contact form, and we will take the page down while we look into it.

How we describe awards

Every label on an award record is a fact you can check against the official rules, and nothing more: whether an author may enter, whether only a publisher or agent may, whether readers or members nominate, whether there is no entry at all, whether a jury or a vote decides the winner, whether entering costs money, whether eligibility depends on where you live or which community the award serves, whether independently published books may enter, and whether we have been able to confirm the current rules. A record carries as many as apply. No label says an award is major, prestigious, a long shot, or worth the fee, because those are opinions and they do not belong in a chip beside a deadline.

When an award record goes beyond the facts (who may enter, the fee, the deadline, the model), any judgment about its usefulness rests on the same short rubric, and the record says which points it rests on: who administers the award, how long it has run, how transparent the judging is, how selective it is, how large the eligible pool is, what it costs, whether there is a public archive of past winners, whether trade buyers or libraries use it, what rights winners get to a seal, and what documented outcomes past winners report. A judgment made on that rubric is still our opinion, not a guarantee, and the record never implies one.

Directory listings

The people directories (literary agents, editors, publishers, publicists) list professionals an author might write to. They follow a stricter set of rules than the award and outlet records, because they are about people:

• We publish only basic information gathered from public professional sources: a name, a role, an organization, a location, what they say they work on, a link to their own site, and for agents and publishers a link to their official submissions page. Nothing more until the person tells us more.
• Every listing says how well it has been checked. A listing nobody has confirmed is labeled "Unverified listing". A publicist or marketing consultant who has not yet told us they work with authors is labeled "Not yet confirmed". A listing the person has confirmed says so, with the date, and a listing the person maintains themselves says that too.
• We keep the source and the date we reviewed it on file, and we show them to the person the listing is about when they ask.
• The person is in charge of their listing. Everyone listed can confirm it, suggest changes, claim it as their own page, or ask for it to be removed, from a link we send them or from the contact form. A removal request is honored and the listing is not put back.
• We do not copy biographies, headshots, logos, personal contact details, endorsements, or subjective claims into a listing without the person's permission. A biography appears only when the person wrote it for their listing. An email address appears only when the person turned it on.
• For agents and publishers we link to the official submissions page rather than republishing submission instructions that may be out of date by the time you read them. Always follow their current guidelines.
• A basic listing is free, and always will be. Nobody pays to be listed, to be verified, or to be removed. If we ever offer paid enhancements, they will be labeled as such and kept clearly apart from free inclusion and verification, and they will never change how a listing is worded or ordered.
• Being listed is not a recommendation. A person appears because authors ask about that kind of professional and the person's own public page describes that work. We do not rank them.

The library directory follows the same rules, with two differences that come from what a library is:

• One listing per public library system, never per branch. The location and population numbers come from the federal Public Libraries Survey, which the Institute of Museum and Library Services runs. They describe the system, not any one branch. Locations are the main library and its branches added together, because the survey counts the two apart.
• We link to the library's own page for authors and say when we last read it. Each listing carries that link, the library's own short words about it, and the date, with who checked it: us, reading the page, or the library itself through the link we sent. A library whose page we have not found says so outright, and anyone can tell us where it is. We never republish submission instructions we read elsewhere, because they go out of date.
• A library listing is nobody's personal profile, so it is not claimed like one. Somebody who works at the library gives us their work email address on the listing and we send the same confirmation link we would have sent anyway, so the listing is opened by a person at the library rather than by whoever asked first. An address that is not on the library's own web address becomes a note for one of us to read instead. We never say whether an address is one we already hold.

A company listing is shared by the people at it, so whoever claimed a company can invite colleagues on the company's own web address to keep the listing current with them, and can take an invitation back at any time; an administrator can also move a claim to another account when the person who made it has moved on, and both sides of every one of those changes are recorded.

An award record or a review outlet record is not a profile and nobody edits it directly, not even the organization it is about: the people who run an award or an outlet can confirm the record or send us corrections field by field, from a link we email to an address on the record's own official page, and one of us reads and applies every change before it reaches the page, which then says who confirmed it and when.

The Learn About Publishing directories (publishing news and resources, and author and publishing organizations) follow the same rules, with one thing said plainly on every page: the one or two sentences that describe a resource or an organization are ours, written in plain words from what it says about itself in public, until the organization confirms them, and the page says which. We never publish a subscription price or a membership fee: what something costs is free, paid, free and paid, or not stated, and their own page carries the figure.

Corrections

We correct errors promptly and keep an internal revision record of what changed, when, and on what source. If you see something wrong or out of date, use the corrections page. The contact form also has a "Missing Resource" option for outlets, awards, and tools we have not covered yet.

The limits of what we can promise

Eligibility rules, fees, and deadlines change, sometimes without notice. The official rules of each outside organization control. AuthorChecklist.com provides educational information and organizational tools; it is not a publisher, literary agent, publicist, lawyer, accountant, distributor, review publication, library, or award administrator.