publishing

Publishing

Overview

Take a final manuscript into readers' hands. This skill fills the publishing metadata in story.md, writes the copyright page, builds and checks the ebook and print interior, walks the author through distribution, pricing, and launch, and keeps an inventory of the rights the author holds. Planning files live under publishing/ in the story project. The author makes every account, upload, purchase, payment, and signature; this skill prepares, checks, and records.

Prerequisites

A story project whose manuscript is final or nearly so. Verify story.md exists and read title, status, author or authors, genre, series, book-number, cover, and any publishing fields already set. If status is not complete, say that metadata and launch planning can start now but the files must be rebuilt after the last revision.

Language And Market

Read language in story.md (a missing field means en) and ask which countries the author is publishing in. The book's language decides the language of the description, keywords, and copyright page; the market decides the ISBN agency, subject schemes, retailers, and pricing rules. The references start from the US and UK English-language market and note the rest: Thema subjects and ISBN agencies elsewhere in references/metadata-checklist.md, other retail routes and fixed book prices in references/launch-plan.md, and rights by language and territory in references/rights-one-sheet.md. Never assume a US retailer, scheme, or law applies elsewhere; say what to check.

When to Use

• Filling retailer metadata: ISBN, publisher, date, description, keywords, BISAC and Thema subjects, language, cover alt text, AI disclosure
• Writing the copyright page and recording the permission status of quoted matter (clearance questions go to editorial-review)
• Building and checking the EPUB or the print interior; choosing trim size
• Choosing retailers and exclusivity, setting prices, planning a launch
• Recording rights, reviewing a contract offer, drafting a rights one-sheet
• NOT for query letters, agent submission, synopsis, blurb, or retailer description drafting (use submission; this skill reuses its blurb and retailer description)
• NOT for audiobook scripts, screenplays, translations, or other formats (use adaptation)
• NOT for revising the manuscript (use revision-continuity)

Hard Rules

• Never invent an ISBN, publisher or imprint name, publication date, price, review, endorsement, sales figure, award, or bestseller claim. Ask, or leave a [TODO: author to supply] placeholder.
• Never assert current retailer specs, royalty rates, or fees as fact. They change. Give the working figure as a starting point and tell the author to check the retailer's current spec before relying on it.
• Legal, tax, and contract matters are not legal or tax advice. Flag issues, explain why they matter, and recommend an agent, a publishing lawyer, an accountant, or an author organization's contract-vetting service.
• Never create accounts, upload, buy, sign, or send. The author does.
• ai-disclosure must say what actually happened. Ask the author how AI tools were used; never minimise it.

Workflow

1. Readiness

story reindex .
story wordcount . --write
story check .
story prose .
story build . --format metadata

The metadata sheet lists every missing field in its readiness checklist, including a Permissions cleared for quoted matter row that names each matter page still at permission: pending, whatever the story status, a No `[TODO` markers in chapter prose row that names each chapter still holding a [TODO marker, which every build would print, and a No `[TODO` markers on matter pages row that names each matter page still holding one, such as a [TODO: author to supply] ISBN line. Report the checklist with the validate findings, and any has no prose yet warning from the build: that chapter would ship as a heading-only page, so ask whether to write it or remove it. validate warns about permission: pending only once the story status is complete, and about a research note with a risk but no reviewed-by only when a final or complete chapter uses it, so also list them directly before publication:

story list matter --where permission=pending
story list research --where risk --where '!reviewed-by'

Report every pending permission, and every risky note without reviewed-by, whatever the chapter status. If story passes . shows unfinished revision passes, say so before production starts.

story export and every build that prints matter pages (markdown, EPUB, DOCX, HTML, print, narration) leave out a page whose permission is pending, misspelt, or any value but not-needed, granted, or public-domain, and warn permission-pending-left-out for it, so a file built for upload, a printer, or readers never carries the uncleared quote. Report each such warning: the book builds without that page until the author confirms the permission. Add --include-pending only when the author asks to see the page in a proof they read alone, such as a print PDF for layout, and tell them not to share or upload that file. Never add it to a build for a retailer, a printer, advance readers, or the review copy workflow, and never set it in cli-defaults (validate refuses it).

2. Metadata

Fill the story.md fields with references/metadata-checklist.md: isbn, publisher, publication-date, language, description, keywords, subjects, copyright, cover-alt, ai-disclosure, and authors for co-written books, or editor for an anthology (each story's writer then goes in its chapter's author). Take the description from submission/blurb.md (the submission skill drafts and owns it; draft it there first if it is missing). Write the description and keywords in the book's language. subjects holds BISAC codes only; when the author's distributors ask for Thema, choose the codes from the checklist and record them in publishing/launch-plan.md. Rebuild the sheet and repeat until the checklist is clean:

story reindex .
story wordcount . --write
story check .
story build . --format metadata

3. ISBNs and copyright page

1. Explain the ISBN choices in references/metadata-checklist.md: one ISBN per format and edition, who issues them in the author's country (outside the English-speaking markets too), and the trade-offs of a free retailer ISBN. Record the ebook or print ISBN the author supplies in isbn.

2. Create the copyright page and fill it from references/copyright-page.md:

   story add matter 'Copyright' --order 0 --heading=false
   

   Use an order lower than every other front page so it sits first (behind the title page); story add matter otherwise takes the next free number. --heading=false writes heading: false (on an existing page, edit its heading: key rather than adding a second one). Without this page, every build except Shunn generates a minimal one from copyright; write it by hand when the book needs credits, permissions, or a Library of Congress line. Leave [TODO: author to supply] on any line the author has not given you, such as an ISBN not yet bought. validate warns about it (matter-todo-markers), and so does every build that prints the page, while still building it. Ask the author for each such line, and tell them not to upload a file built while that warning shows. Promote the code to level: error under severity in story.md only when the author asks for release builds to fail on it.

3. For each epigraph, lyric, or quoted page in matter/, record its permission state (not-needed, pending, granted, public-domain), rights-holder, and credit as the author reports them. Whether a quotation needs permission, and how to ask, is a clearance question for the editorial-review skill.

4. Ebook

First agree the look of the ebook, review copy, and print interior with the author. Without a build-style block in story.md they keep the classic look (Georgia, centred headings, indented paragraphs, * * * scene breaks). To change it, add one entry, for example:

build-style:
  - preset: elegant
    scene-break: "~"

preset is classic, modern, or elegant; body-font, heading-font, heading-style, scene-break, drop-caps, and paragraphs override it, and css adds a .css file from the project. Never set a font the author has not chosen, and remind them that an ebook reader can replace the fonts. The Shunn manuscript and DOCX builds ignore the block. Run story validate after editing it: a bad value stops the EPUB, HTML, and print builds.

story build . --format epub

The EPUB carries accessibility metadata, language, semantic chapter and matter markup, a landmarks nav, the cover with cover-alt, and the metadata fields. If the author has EPUBCheck or Ace by DAISY installed, run them on the file in dist/ (java -jar epubcheck.jar <file>.epub, ace <file>.epub) and fix errors before upload. Ask the author to open it in at least one reading app and in the retailer's previewer.

5. Print interior

Follow references/print-interior.md:

1. Choose the trim size with the author (5x8, 5.25x8, 5.5x8.5, 6x9, a5), then build:

   story build . --format print --trim 6x9
   

2. Render the PDF. If the author has a paged-media engine installed (Prince, WeasyPrint, pagedjs-cli, or Chrome as a fallback), let the CLI find and run it:

   story build . --format print --trim 6x9 --pdf
   

   It writes dist/<story-id>.pdf. Name an engine with --pdf-engine <name|path>. With none installed it stops (exit 4) and lists what to install; the CLI bundles none.

3. Check the rendered PDF against the printer's file requirements; use its actual page count for the cover.

4. Tell the author to get the spine width and full cover wrap template from the printer's cover calculator, and to order a printed proof before release.

6. Distribution and pricing

Lay out the options in references/launch-plan.md: KDP, IngramSpark, Draft2Digital or another aggregator, and direct sales, plus the trade-off between exclusivity (KDP Select and Kindle Unlimited) and going wide. For a book sold outside the US and UK, or not in English, add the routes and fixed-price rules in its Outside the US and UK section. The author decides; record the choices in publishing/launch-plan.md. Discuss pricing with the considerations in the same reference, not a formula.

7. Retailer page copy

The retailer description has one draft, in submission/blurb.md, and the submission skill owns it: make any change there with that skill. Check its first two lines, which show before "read more", and its length against the metadata sheet's character count. Draft into publishing/retailer-copy.md only series-page copy when series is set, and A+ or enhanced-content ideas (a comparison chart of series books, a character or map panel, a mood image with a quote), following ../submission/references/blurb.md.

8. Launch

Build publishing/launch-plan.md from the T-90 to T+30 timeline in references/launch-plan.md: ARC team, newsletter and reader magnet, street team, preorder, launch week, and paid ads with a test budget and stop rules. Update the plan as the author reports what happened; never fill in results they did not give you.

9. Rights and contracts

1. Keep publishing/rights.md from the inventory in references/rights-one-sheet.md: every right (print, ebook, audio, translation by language or territory, film and TV, and the rest), who holds it, the term, and the reversion terms. The original-language rows use the book's own language, not English by default.
2. When the author has a contract offer, read it against references/contract-red-flags.md and list each clause that matches a red flag with the question to ask. State that this is not legal advice and recommend a lawyer or agent before signing.
3. For rights the author wants to license, draft a one-sheet from references/rights-one-sheet.md.

Conventions

• Planning files: publishing/launch-plan.md, publishing/retailer-copy.md, publishing/rights.md, publishing/one-sheet-{right}.md (for example publishing/one-sheet-audio.md).
• Each file has YAML frontmatter with a type (launch-plan, retailer-copy, rights-inventory, rights-one-sheet) and updated: YYYY-MM-DD.
• publishing/ is outside the story model: the CLI does not validate it and builds never include it. Build output in dist/ is disposable; rebuild it rather than editing it.
• One story.md holds one edition's metadata. When the ebook and print ISBNs differ, record the one being built in isbn, set it before each build, and keep both in the copyright page and publishing/rights.md.
• Dates are YYYY-MM-DD. Word counts come from story wordcount ..
• After any manuscript change, rebuild every format and recheck page count and spine width before re-uploading.

CLI Maintenance

Use the Story CLI when it is available. If story is not installed, use the bundled fallback node ../story-maintenance/scripts/story.js with the same arguments. Use node <checkout>/bin/story.js instead only when the user names a Story Skills repository checkout or you are working in one. Write the script as an absolute path (resolve the fallback relative to this skill folder) and run it from the folder you would run story from, so . and other relative paths keep their meaning. Use Node, not Bun or a package script: Bun would load that folder's bunfig.toml (which can run code) and .env, and a package script runs from the checkout's root. If no CLI is available, fill the metadata by hand from references/metadata-checklist.md and tell the user that the EPUB, print, and metadata builds need the CLI.

After editing story.md metadata, adding matter pages, or changing the manuscript:

story reindex .
story wordcount . --write
story check .
story build . --format metadata

Reference Files

• references/metadata-checklist.md - Every publishing field, ISBN agencies and trade-offs, keywords, BISAC and Thema subjects, descriptions, AI disclosure, and CIP or PCN notes
• references/copyright-page.md - Copyright page template, optional lines, permissions credits, and legal deposit notes
• references/print-interior.md - Trim size choice, page-count estimates, rendering to PDF, printer checks, cover wrap, and proofs
• references/launch-plan.md - Distribution and exclusivity, routes outside the US and UK, pricing considerations including fixed book prices, and the T-90 to T+30 launch timeline with ARCs, newsletter, and ad testing
• references/contract-red-flags.md - Clause-by-clause red flags for publishing and rights contracts, and where to get a professional review
• references/rights-one-sheet.md - Rights inventory template by language and territory, and one-sheets for foreign, audio, and film rights

Shared Conventions

Every story skill follows the shared conventions in ../story-maintenance/references/conventions.md, resolved relative to this skill folder. Read it before creating, renaming, or linking story files. If that file is missing because this skill was installed without story-maintenance, the essentials are: kebab-case ids and filenames, YAML frontmatter on every story-project file, _index.md registry tables that story reindex rebuilds (never edit them by hand), bidirectional links between entities, characters for who is on the page and mentions for who is only referred to, status: deceased plus died-in: chapter-{NN} for deaths, and no project-local generator or build scripts (run only the installed or bundled Story CLI).