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 or checking epigraph and lyric permissions
• 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, or blurb drafting (use submission; this skill reuses its blurb)
• 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, and a No [TODO markers in chapter prose row that names each chapter still holding a [TODO marker, which every build would print. Report it 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 search the files directly before publication:

grep -l "permission: pending" matter/*.md
grep -l "^risk:" research/*.md

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.

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 when it exists (the submission skill drafts it). 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.

3. For each epigraph, lyric, or quoted page in matter/, set permission (not-needed, pending, granted, public-domain), rights-holder, and credit. Quoting song lyrics almost always needs permission.

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.