What To Freak Out About

Hi friends!

The latest kerfuffle I'm seeing online, besides the 2M book deal about which I have no hot takes to add, is someone asking, all sweaty and anxious: what do you mean the publisher isn't going to tell me when my book is available on Netgalley?????? This and other things are not the emergency some authors, and internet commenters, think it is. What's an actually book emergency? Read on to find out.

Should I make this a series? What to freak out about and what not to? Tell me what you're freaking out about in the comments.

So, Netgalley. This is a website where reviewers can request early copies of a book to review, and it's an early sign that things are getting real with your not-yet-published book. It's exciting, if you're scouring the internet for proof-of-life for your book. Do lots of authors check this? Does it show up on a Google Alert? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I'll admit, I definitely checked mine before my book came out, but I knew where to look.

Publishers pay for books to be available on Netgalley. Anyone can be a member and request review copies, but publishers approve you or not to receive them, so this is not a place just to get a bunch of free books. There's also Edelweiss, which also distributes review copies, but there's a lot more sales-focused information there, and it's mostly used by booksellers and publisher's sales teams.

These are two things among many that happen to and around your book that the publisher is going to handle, and you, as the author, do not need to be alerted about. Sometimes, and there are other cases, too, these things signal the first public access points for a pre-published book. This information may be available around the same time information feeds out to Amazon and other online retailers. This is not an "announcement" of your book. It is not a "cover reveal." It is the robots picking up metadata, especially in the case of retailer sites, and the publisher doing their job to make your book available for industry professionals to help sell your book.

Unfortunately, (and this is the part this post is here to remedy), authors feel like they should be told when something changes about the public-facing visibility of their book. In general, yes, the author should be altered when BIG things change (pre-orders starting, cover-changes, pub dates) and usually that happens. Sometimes things slip through the cracks, because we are an industry run by humans for humans. But there's a whole trove of information that changes from time to time, throughout the whole process of publishing a book, from the moment the deal is signed, that is not mission-critical for the author's action or awareness. A lot of that is metadata.

Things that are metadata: number of pages in your book, BISAC codes, cover copy, SEO/keywords, author's name, author's bio, book title, subtitle, publication date, book trim size, format (paperback etc), publisher/imprint, ISBN, cover image, and more. It's someone's job at each publisher to enter in this metadata. Sometimes's multiple people's jobs. It's just a database. (Publishing people: If I'm wrong about something, lmk. Luckily, I'm not in charge of metadata.) Sometimes, when a deal is made, everyone plans for the book to be 5"x7", so they put that in the metadata. Along the way, it turns out that 7"x9" is better for this book (design-wise, cost of paper-wise, sales-wise) and that gets changed. And someone has to go in and change it in the metadata. It does not happen automatically. Whether it could or should happen automatically is not the point. (Publishers don't want to spend all their money on the latest administrative software.)

You know what metadata is? Data. You know how that gets in a publisher's "system?" Humans, i.e. data entry. You know what is the least fun part of any job? Data entry. This doesn't mean the publisher doesn't care about accuracy in your metadata, but just remember that publishing is just humans doing jobs. Inaccuracies in your metadata can be fixed easily and do not constitute an emergency. Let me repeat: there are no emergencies in publishing.

If you see something wrong with your book's listing online, tell your agent and editor, and don't freak out. Most of the time, no one is looking at your Amazon listing or your book page on the publisher's website except you.

Oh, and the reason publishers don't notify authors when different things related to metadata (Netgalley, Amazon listing, etc) go live? Because it's not news. It is truly not important, especially if your book does not come out for months and months. The availability of this information is just one business (the publisher) talking to another business (the retailer) about a thing they're going to sell to the public (your book). It is not the declassification of state secrets. It's exciting to learn and see! But it is not the starting gun for your book.

Sometimes the author finds out news via this metadata release and sometimes the publisher should have told the author before it went live. I've seen authors discover their pub date has been moved this way, and that's bad form on the publisher's part. Sometimes an old author bio gets put up instead of a newly revised one. Sometimes Amazon doesn't link all the books by one author together. (I know that's happened to me personally). These are mistakes. They are unfortunate. They are not emergencies. It is definitely not fun to learn something critical to your book by way of Google Alert, and it's ok to talk to your publishing team about how/why the mistake happened. Usually, it's just a mistake made by humans, not a sign that your publisher sucks or they hate you or your book. I promise, it's not that deep.

I'm being glib here, and making light of something that genuinely stresses authors out. I'm sorry. It is hard to be an author and authors often feel left in the dark about what's going on with their book. (That's why I'm writing this post.) When authors don't get a heads up and then get an email from a friend or family that says omg did you know your book is already up on Amazon!???!?!! it catches them on the back foot. No one likes to feel like they don't know what's going on with their own book. And no one likes to feel "ignored" by their publisher, especially in the exciting months that lead to pub.

None of us are immune to this knee-jerk reaction, including me. I was poking around my own book's listing somewhere online (I don't remember where, but not like in the publisher's backend, no author can do that), after publication, a completely useless exercise, and I noticed a foreign edition of my book. What???? Why didn't anyone tell me the foreign rights had been sold????? I quickly emailed my agent, not mad exactly but, confused maybe????, adrenaline pumping. Guess what? Everyone told me months ago. The email thread was right there. I was the one that forgot. Ooops!! It comes for all us authors, regardless of how long we're in the biz.

The point of this newsletter is to tell you not to freak out. Honestly, try not to freak out about anything. Something will go wrong with your book. There will be a mistake in the metadata somewhere, maybe. You will find out X before Y got a chance to tell you. Someone will send the wrong file (NOT to the printer though) (hopefully) and it will get fixed. This is not proof that trad publishing sucks. This is not proof that publishers hate authors and just throw shit against the wall and call it books. It is not proof that one publisher cares more or less about an author or a genre or whatever. It's just proof that we're humans making things and humans make mistakes. Whomst among us and all that, right? I hope that any mistake that might happen to your book will be quickly fixed and invisible to readers. In all likelihood, that's how it will play out.

Guess what? There's a small mistake in my picture book that, while unfortunate, is not critical and no one noticed at all. My team was super apologetic and it will get fixed if there's another printing. And guess what else? It happens. It didn't hurt my book at all and is just one of those things. I wasn't furious about it and didn't demand heads roll as a result. I didn't demand the book be pulped and reprinted (which would not happen). I rolled with it. It's fine. That's how it goes.

Your publisher should be in touch with you about the big things going on with your book. If they're not, ask them, tell them, talk to them. But try to assess if what you're looking at is truly a big deal, or just something you didn't previously know about. Your editor is not your personal book concierge. This is not your wedding and they are not your wedding planner. You're all on the same team. When in doubt, ask your agent.

XOXOXOX,

Kate

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Who am I and what is this? This is Agents & Books, a twice-weekly newsletter about writing, publishing, and the creative life. I've been an agent for 20 years, most of it at the Howard Morhaim Literary Agency, and I'm the author of two books: Write Through It: An Insider's Guide to Publishing and the Creative Life (Simon Element, 2025) and a picture book called Pay Attention to Me!, with illustrations by Rob Justus (Sourcebooks, 2026). If you haven't already, become a subscriber today. $5 a month or $50 a year. Same price since 2019! Need to cancel? Look here.