The self-publishing checklist: everything to verify before you hit publish

Publishing a book on Amazon takes about twenty minutes. Preparing one properly takes considerably longer, and the difference between a book that sells and one that does not is usually a list of small, checkable things.

Manuscript: confirm consistent heading styles throughout, no manual page breaks used as spacing, a generated rather than typed table of contents, matched quotation mark style, images at 300 DPI, and no tracked changes or comments left in the file.

Front matter: half title, title page, copyright page, dedication, table of contents — in that order. Back matter: about the author, a review request, and links to your other titles.

Proofread on a different device than you wrote on. Errors hide in the environment where they were created. Reading the manuscript on an e-reader or in a different typeface surfaces a surprising number of them.

Rights: check any song lyrics, extended quotations, recipes, brand names and licensed images. An 'editorial use' image licence does not cover a book cover, and AI-generated art may carry its own restrictions.

Cover: correct trim size and template, spine text only if the book is 79+ pages, 300 DPI, CMYK for print and RGB for ebook, title legible at thumbnail size, fonts licensed for commercial use.

Metadata: title and subtitle consistent across formats, seven distinct keyword phrases with no wasted slots, two categories chosen deliberately, description under 2,000 visible characters using only permitted HTML, correct age and grade ranges if applicable.

Pricing and rights territory: check the 70 percent royalty band requirements for your price and file size, decide on KDP Select exclusivity deliberately rather than by default, and set territories to worldwide unless you have a reason not to.

Proof: order a physical proof for paperback and preview the ebook in the Kindle previewer on both phone and tablet layouts. Colour and spacing problems that are invisible on a desktop screen are obvious on a device.

Finally, prepare your launch mechanics — review requests, a mailing list link in the back matter, and your first advertising test — before publication rather than after. Manucheck runs the manuscript, metadata, rights and cover portions of this list automatically and returns a scored report of what still needs work.