In itself, the publication date is not significant. An exact date is only important for a relative handful of bestselling authors. For readers, it increasingly matters little, with all books becoming variously available for sale at different times in different parts of the world through online databases and retail. But the month is helpful to have something to hook the marketing systems around. We generally gear any publicity we do around the month of publication and the few months following rather than a specific day. The book will be available for sale when it arrives at the warehouse.
Notes
- Scheduling publication: We do not schedule the publication date for the book until we have the text and cover files finished, fully edited and proofed and ready for the printer. We give both files a final proofread after you see them in the Production Workflow stages. The following month, we set the publication date, and send the information out. We aim for the same publication date for ebook and paperback.
- The exact date: We have a nominal publishing date of the first Friday in each month. We aim to get copies of the book to the warehouses in the UK/USA six weeks prior to publication, with advance copies usually coming a couple of weeks before that (which come to the office rather than the warehouse).
- Exceptions: We cannot comment on the optimum timing here for individual titles—there are too many variables, different in different parts of the world for different markets. In general, judge that the book will be available the month before publication, and that earlier releases than that may possibly be counter-productive.
- Amazon US: Amazon UK datafeed accepts two dates: availability and publication, but Amazon US accepts only one. To align the policy of making books available to trade and readers after they reach distributor warehouses, we have to make the publication date the first of the month on Amazon US.