A Checklist for Publishing Your Book

Organizing and writing your novel is obviously the first step in the publication process. There are already many useful resources available that can help you plan and prepare that novel. But what about after the book is written? Do you know the publishing and marketing steps you’ll need to follow to get your work out into the world?

It sounds daunting because there are so many things to remember. This is why I created my own publishing and marketing checklists, so I always know what needs to be done, and in what order. It’s helped me so much that I wanted to share it with you.

My advice is to print off the following checklists and begin by crossing off the line items that don’t apply; every author uses a variety of distributors and marketing methods, so if you don’t use Draft2Digital or HootSuite, just delete those. Your sheets may also include more outlets, such as Ingram Spark, Google Play, iBooks, or ACX. And you may choose not to include the portions of the process that you’re outsourcing, such as writing the marketing copy.

In general, most of these steps will be completed in the week prior to pushing the publish button—with the exception of Createspace, which can take more time. But keep in mind that some of the line items are reliant on other sites doing their jobs before you can take the next step, such as Amazon building your book page before you can add your title to your Author Central page. In this way, it may take some fiddling to figure out the perfect timeline, but this list should get you started.