Publishing Your Website

Once you have built a site in Pubblish, this guide covers publishing your site so readers can see it. You can preview a site, mark it as published, put it online through Netlify or a downloaded ZIP, and embed book and signup widgets on other web pages. Pubblish builds your website but does not host it. Putting the site online is always a step you take yourself. To build the site itself, see Websites & Themes.

Previewing your site

Open the Websites page from the Marketing section of the main menu. Click a site name to open its detail page.

Click Preview in the top bar. The preview opens in a new tab and shows your site with its theme, pages, and colors applied. This preview is private to your workspace. Use it to check your work before you publish or deploy.

Publishing your site

On a site’s detail page, the status shows as either Draft or Published.

Click Publish Site to change the status to Published and record the date. Click Unpublish to move it back to Draft.

Publishing marks a site as ready inside Pubblish. It does not put the site on the internet on its own. Pubblish generates your site. It does not run a web server for it. To make the site reachable, deploy it to Netlify or download it and upload it to your own host. Both steps are covered below.

Your site’s address is shown under Site Details as yoursite.pubblish.website. This is the site’s main address for search engines and links.

Deploying to Netlify

Netlify is a free static-site host. Pubblish can send your site straight to it. You connect your own Netlify account once, then deploy whenever your content changes.

Connect your Netlify account

Connecting needs Owner or Admin access, because it stores a Netlify API token for the whole workspace. With Editor access, this page shows a message asking you to have an admin or the owner connect the site instead — you can deploy it once they have.

On the site’s detail page, click Deploy to open the Deploy to Netlify page.
Create a free account at netlify.com if you do not have one.
In Netlify, create an empty site. Use Add new site, then Deploy manually.
In Netlify, create a Personal Access Token under User Settings, then Applications, then Personal Access Tokens.
Back in Pubblish, under Connect to Netlify, enter your Netlify Site ID and paste the token into API Token.
Click Connect.

If your workspace has already saved a Netlify token under Credentials in Settings, the form offers a Saved API Token dropdown as well. Pick the saved token there, or paste a different one into New API Token. Use one or the other, not both.

Pubblish checks the token with Netlify before saving. If the details are wrong, it shows an error and does not connect.

Deploy your site

Once connected, the Deploy to Netlify page shows a Deploy Now button under Manual Deploy. Click it to build your site and send the latest version to Netlify. Netlify charges credits for each deploy, and the line under the button gives the current charge.

Deployments are limited to 5 per hour to protect your Netlify credits.

When the deploy succeeds, your live address appears under Connection as Live URL. That is the working link to your site.

Automatic deploys and credits

The Auto-Deploy section needs Owner or Admin access, the same as connecting. With Editor access the section is not on the page, and neither is Disconnect.

Under Auto-Deploy, tick Automatically deploy when content changes to have Pubblish redeploy after you edit the site. Choose Hourly, Daily or Weekly under Deploy frequency, then click Save Settings. All three are yours to pick. The help text under the field gives Netlify’s charge per deploy, so you can weigh a frequency against what it costs.

The This Month panel counts the deploys Pubblish has made for this site this month. Beside them it shows your own estimates of bandwidth and form submissions, which you set under Update Estimates. Under Credits, estimated, the panel converts all three into credits at Netlify’s published rates. It also names the date those rates were read. Pubblish cannot see your Netlify plan or your balance — your Netlify dashboard has the real figures.

To stop deploying to Netlify, click Disconnect in the Connection panel. This also needs Owner or Admin access. It removes the link inside Pubblish. It does not delete the site already on Netlify.

Exporting your site as a ZIP

If you want to host your site somewhere other than Netlify, download it as static files.

On the site’s detail page, click Export to open the Export Website page. Under Full Site Export, click Download ZIP. The ZIP contains every page as static HTML, your CSS and colors, cover images, and deployment instructions. Upload it to any static host, such as Cloudflare Pages or Netlify.

Seeing it live straight away

If you only want to look at the finished site, or show it to someone, drag the ZIP onto Cloudflare Drop. You get a working web address within seconds. You do not need an account and there is nothing to set up.

The preview stays online for one hour. To keep it, click Claim on that page within the hour and sign in with a free Cloudflare account. If you do not claim it, the address stops working.

This is the quickest way to check an exported site before you decide where to host it properly.

The same page offers two smaller exports:

Single Page Export downloads the body HTML of one page, for pasting into an existing website.
Widget Snippets exports standalone HTML for a newsletter signup form, a featured-books grid, or social media links. Click Preview to see a snippet, or the download icon to save it.

Widgets are small HTML snippets you paste onto any web page, including a site you host elsewhere. Pubblish generates a book card, buy buttons, or a newsletter signup form that updates automatically when your catalog changes.

Open the Widgets page from the Marketing section of the main menu.

Book Widgets lists every edition that has an ISBN and belongs to a book you have not withdrawn. For each one, click Book Card or Buy Buttons to open the embed page.
Signup Form Widgets lists your newsletter signup forms. Click Signup Form for a form that sits in the page, or Pop-up for one that opens over it.

The embed page is titled Share on Your Website. It shows a live preview and the code to copy. Every embed type lets you set the Primary Color and toggle Show ‘Powered by Pubblish’. The color starts as your brand color, marked Your brand color beside the swatch. Change it and a Reset button takes that label’s place, to put the brand color back.

Book Card adds more controls under Customize: a Card Width slider, and toggles for Show cover image, Show buy button and Show description. Buy Buttons has only the color and Powered-by toggle. Signup Form adds a Style choice — Inline (single row), Stacked (vertical) or Minimal (email only).

Book cards and buy buttons need an edition with an ISBN. Signup forms come from your newsletter setup. See Newsletters to create a signup form. See Channels & Smart Links for the retailer links behind the buy buttons.

Using a custom domain

A custom domain lets your site use your own web address — for example www.myauthorsite.com — instead of a pubblish.website address.

Netlify serves the domain from your own Netlify account. Netlify also sets up the security certificate. Pubblish records the domain and uses it for the links on every page of your site. Three steps:

In Netlify, open your site and go to Domain management. Add the domain you already own. Netlify shows the DNS records to set with your domain registrar, and checks them for you.
In Pubblish, open your site and click Settings. Enter the domain in the Custom domain field — just the domain, with no https://. The field saves automatically.
Deploy the site again — see “Deploying to Netlify” above. The redeploy rebuilds every page and link with the new address.

The live site keeps its old address until you redeploy.

If a step in Pubblish does not match what you see, click Help in the page header, then Ask. The assistant doesn’t know Netlify’s own screens.