Getting Started with Pubblish

This guide takes you from creating an account to having your books in Pubblish. Most of it takes the first ten minutes. The rest of your catalog’s detail can wait.

If your books are already in a spreadsheet, you can bring them all in at once. Any layout works. This is the quickest way to start.

Creating Your Account

Creating an account is one form.

Workspace name: names your workspace. Your own name is fine if you publish under it.
Your Pubblish web address: the address of your workspace, for example mycompany.pubblish.com. Pubblish suggests it from your workspace name as you type. You can change it. Use letters, numbers and hyphens only, at least three characters.
Your email address and a password.

Then confirm your email. Pubblish shows Check your inbox and emails you a link. Open the email, click the link, and press Confirm email address. If you create an account with Google, your email is already confirmed.

Then choose a plan and press Continue to payment. Enter your card details in the payment window. Your workspace is ready within seconds of payment. Pubblish opens your dashboard.

Choose your web address with care. The owner can change it later on the Workspace tab of Settings. Changing it signs everyone out.

Confirming Your Email

You confirm your email before you pay, so your payment and its receipts go to an address that is really yours.

If you mistyped your address:

Open Wrong address? on the Check your inbox page.
Enter the right address.

The new address gets a fresh link. The link sent to the wrong address stops working. To get the link again, click Send it again on the same page.

If someone invites you to their team, accepting the invitation confirms your email.

Your Dashboard

A new workspace shows a welcome panel with two ways in. Pick the one that fits.

Your situation	The door
Books already in a spreadsheet	Import your catalog
Starting from nothing	Add your first title

The panel also offers three more tasks:

Set up your publisher profile: do this before you add an edition. Every edition needs an imprint, and you add one here.
Invite your team: can wait. Only the owner and administrators see it.
Set your workspace defaults: can wait. Only the owner and administrators see it.

The welcome panel disappears once you have a title. You can dismiss it at any time.

Importing Your Catalog

Use this if you have a spreadsheet, a retailer export, or a list in your own layout.

Step 1: Upload your file

Go to Import. Click Import titles on the dashboard, or Import on the Titles page.
Drop in your file (.xlsx or .csv).
Click Check my file.

You do not need to rearrange, rename or reorder your columns first.

The dashboard’s Import titles button shows only before your workspace has any titles.

Uploading only looks at the file. Nothing is imported at this stage.

Step 2: Check what we understood

The preview opens with Understood n of m columns, split into two lists.

Being imported: the columns we recognized, and what each one became.
Not being imported: the columns we could not place. Nothing in them is imported.

Read the second list. A sales report has many columns a catalog does not need, so leaving them out is often right. If a column matters:

Open Tell us what a column is.
Say what the column holds.
Click Apply and check again.

We never guess at a column. If we cannot tell what it is, we say so and leave it alone.

Step 3: Import

Check the summary: titles, editions, contributors and series, plus any errors and warnings.
Click Import now.

If some rows have problems, the button offers to import the valid rows and skip the rest. Correct the skipped rows and upload again whenever you like. Importing the same file twice updates your titles. It does not duplicate them.

What a row needs

One row per edition.

A new book needs a title, and an ISBN or ASIN for its edition.
An edition you already have needs only the ISBN. The ISBN matches the row to an edition, and everything else on the row updates it.

A row can also carry:

the edition’s pages, price and publication date
as many contributors as the row has, with their roles
a series name and number
the copyright year and holder

Write dates as YYYY-MM-DD. We do not guess whether 03/04/2019 is March or April. If a column of dates never shows which way round it is, we leave those dates out and tell you.

Starting from nothing?

If you have no spreadsheet, click Download a blank template on the Import page. Every column is set up, with notes on what goes where.

Adding a Title by Hand

Use Quick Add Title. Click Add a title on the dashboard, or Quick Add on the Titles page.

You only need a title. Everything else can wait.

When you save, you have three choices:

Create title returns you to the list.
Create & edit opens the full record so you can keep going. It is behind the arrow next to Create title.
Create & add another clears the form for the next title. It is behind the same arrow. Use it to type in a shelf of books.

The Titles page also has Full form. It opens the complete record straight away, if you prefer to fill everything in at once.

The dashboard’s Add a title button shows only before your workspace has any titles.

What to Do Next

None of this is required to get started. None of it is urgent.

Add editions. A title comes in different formats, such as paperback, hardback, ebook and audiobook. Each one has its own ISBN.
Add metadata. Retailers use subject classifications, keywords and descriptions to list and rank your book. See the Metadata Guide.
Set up your publisher profile. Every edition needs an imprint, and you add one here. Its details then appear correctly on exports.
Invite your team, if anyone else works on your books.

Finding Your Way Around

The sidebar on the left holds everything. Its sections can be collapsed.

Press Ctrl+K (Cmd+K on a Mac) anywhere in Pubblish. A box opens listing every page in the menu.

Type a few letters to narrow the list.
Use the arrow keys to move.
Press Enter to go.

Escape closes the box and returns you to where you were.

To use the mouse instead, click the Go to… button in the middle of the header. On a narrow window it shrinks to a magnifying glass.

The box searches the menu and your records. Matching titles and contributors appear under Titles and people, below the pages. The owner and administrators also see matching person records there. Draft and withdrawn titles are left out. To find one, go to Titles and use the search box there.

Getting Help

Start with the assistant. Click Help in the page header, then Ask AI. It answers from these guides. It can also look up your own titles, imports and conversions, so it can point to what is wrong with one title. It cannot change anything for you. If the workspace owner has turned AI features off, it answers from the help guides only.

To read instead, browse the sidebar or use the search box. If neither helps, the Support page shows how to reach us. You can also reply to any email we send you.