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 validate .
story links .
story continuity .
story prose .
story wordcount . --write
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. 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 validate .
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.

1. 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.

1. 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

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

1. Render the HTML to PDF with a paged-media engine the author has

(pagedjs-cli, WeasyPrint, or Prince). The CLI bundles none.

1. Check the rendered PDF against the printer's file requirements; use its

actual page count for the cover.

1. 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

Draft into publishing/retailer-copy.md: a short description (the first two lines, which show before "read more"), the long description (checked against the metadata sheet's character count), 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). Follow ../submission/references/blurb.md for the copy itself. Copy the chosen long description into description.

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.

1. 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.

1. 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 bun run story -- from the Story Skills repository checkout or the bundled fallback node ../story-maintenance/scripts/story.js with the same arguments, resolving the path relative to this skill folder. 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 validate .
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