How do I check a book before it goes live?
- Use each retailer's preview before you hit publish.
- Verify metadata: title, subtitle, author name, description.
- Check the cover renders correctly at thumbnail and full size.
- Confirm pricing and currency across territories.
- Click every link in the listing and back matter.
Before publishing, run a pre-live check on each retailer: use the platform's preview to confirm the interior and cover render correctly, verify your metadata (title, subtitle, author name, description, categories, keywords), check pricing across territories, and click every link in the listing and back matter. Catch errors in preview, where they cost a few minutes to fix, rather than after the book is live and indexed with the mistake baked in.
Chapter i·Why it matters
A live listing is public and indexed, so errors caught after launch are slower and more visible to fix — and some, like a wrong category that affects discoverability, quietly cost sales for weeks before you notice. The retailer preview is a free dress rehearsal of exactly what readers will see. Using it systematically turns the most common launch mistakes (a typo in the subtitle, a cover that crops badly) into pre-launch non-issues.
Chapter ii·What to include
- A retailer-by-retailer preview of interior and cover.
- Metadata verification: title, subtitle, author, description, categories, keywords.
- Cover rendering checked at thumbnail and full size.
- Pricing and currency confirmed across territories.
- Every link clicked — listing, preorder, and back matter.
- A spelling and formatting pass on the description.
Chapter iii·Example
Before going live, an author opens KDP's previewer and spots that her chapter-one drop cap broke on reflow and her subtitle has a stray comma. She fixes both, rechecks her categories, and clicks the three links in her back matter. Ten minutes of preview catches what would otherwise have been a live listing with a visible typo and a misrendered first page.
Chapter iv·Related questions
WriteLoom's Sell studio gives you a pre-live checklist so metadata, cover, pricing, and links are all verified before you publish.
Check before you publish